My Year of Meaningful (2011)

I just love autumn so much and it there is NO good reason for it, but it always makes me just look around and take stock. I'm sure a lot of people do that in spring, what with "the season of rebirth" and all, but for me it's gotta be the beautiful weather and jaw-dropping beauty of my favourite part of the year that makes me get all thoughtful and whatnot.

Everything just seems to be in its place now, everything feeling like where it should be: I've just finished climbing a giant Kilimanjaro at work that has been weighing on my conscience and shoulders since well before Xmas... the Mr. and I are moving on to making new friends after the old ones have left... the Animal Peeps have a new committee with fresh energy and less aggro on board... one of my BFFs has a new relationship that makes him happy and brings out the best in him and is introducing him to the concept of POSITIVE... one of my other BFFs who had a hard winter is back on track with her man and not only seeing the Lovin' In her Baby's Eyes but also feeling the love of all the people who worship her, from that Greatest Ego-Booster of All Time that is The-FB-Wall-on-Your-Birthday (and I know from experience how big a case of the happies that induces! Love seeing my friends get it too)... another one of my peeps-of-the-heart has a smoke-free hubby in the works, one of her life dreams being realized... my new dog plays fetch like a champion (and we only just figured this out)... my new house is awesome and feels like HOME... Podgey got a J-O-B in his new land of residence and WILL BE OK even though it's only 3 months to start with, it's a real J-O-B... I am pretty much OWNING fitness at the moment, my new crock-pot is the answer to all my prayers in terms of new kitchen inspiration after a long dry spell, and hey, if I can't be in Memphis, at least I can make slow-cooked Memphis-style shredded pork shoulder BBQ sandwiches with cole slaw. With a side order of Taj Mahal - I dusted off the old man after (how many years?) of ignoring him, and lo and behold he still rocks my world and puts a smile on my face when I wasn't intending on one being there. Have been listening to his "Maestro" album this week and I don't know what kinda power the Taj has over me, but who needs Prozac, really, when you've got Mr. Mahal.... not many artists can make you happy by singing the blues... I think it's because most of TM's blues singin' on that album is actually about love and lovely things. No one dies, no one gets dumped, and hell, Los Lobos and Ziggy Marley make appearances. And of course The Mr. is at his all time peak of lovableness. I just want to eat him up right now because he's just the best. I don't even know how to describe it other than being married to him gave me the first opportunity to ever use the word "blessed" in a sentence, with an actual understanding of what the definition of that over-used and under-appreciated word is.

Ah, friends, food, dogs, exercise, autumn, love, the blues... REALLY DOES IT GET ANY BETTER?

of course it does! and I know that! and it will! But for now, I just had Tom Petty's "It'll All Work Out" in my head, and even though he writes it as a forlorn tune about unrequited love (always my favourite rock n' roll song topic), but the main text is the point: "That's the way it goes, It'll all work out".

"Now the wind is high, and the rain is heavy
And the water's risin' in the levee
Still I think of her, when the sun goes down
It never goes away, but it all works out..."

I'm out. Happy friday!

Labels: mis amigos, QSI

Why does my FIL have to be such a $%&#!???

I feel sorry for The Mr. because he has to entertain these people more than I do, and by that I mean they basically just want to talk to him and fawn over him and be served by him and have all their questions entertained by him... kinda lets me off the hook, but by the same token, that's just not how we normally roll. It's hard. Know what else is hard? Know-it-alls and over-analysers, and people who take vacations to english-speaking countries and then proceed to speak to Botswana-born waitresses, etc, in european languages. riiiiiiiiiight. lemme know how that works for you.

The longer I'm around my MIL, the more I can appreciate the person that she is, the more that I can have sympathy for her and feel sensitive to even the things she does that make me want to throttle something/someone.

I suppose in the spirit of the QSI I should stop right there and move on with my life, but can I just say one big, private

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

while I'm here? I won't feel sorry for myself. I will just persevere!!!

OK, with that out of the way...

I am struggling to finish this giant report at work. It's been weighing on my soul for so long now, and I'm kind of on the downward slope, but that just makes it even harder to finish. Staying at home and working from there a few days last week and the one before helped a bit, because let's face it, I'm way more productive outside of the office. But I still have that "just barely keeping up" feeling in general. Again we're back to the inherent fact that I DONT LIKE MY JOB, but yes, I know I like it MORE when I'm being diligent and getting things done. And listening to music and turning off the internet, etc. None of which I've been doing lately (well, the music because I currently need to be WRITING, which I can't do at the same time) because I'm out of my inspiration-rut. When I find myself uninspired about work, it's normally because I've hit a rough patch where I'm distracted and not performing well.

I also need to dig my heels into my studies. I have 2 assignments that I havent even started and I neeeeeeeeeeed tooooooo.

Why am I such a slacker!!?? I'll tell ya why:

1. Moving
2. New toy
3. Tired
4. Inlaws
5. Other visitors
6. Life

I have a relaxing koi pond on my iPhone. WT....????

OK right so the inlaws got put on a plane yesterday to go up to the Chobe/Vic Falls for a week. So the next 4 days are "alone time" for me and The Mr. [huge sigh of relief]. Tonight after climbing K-hill and towelling off, we will go have a salad or something light at M&B and then go see "He's Just Not That Into You". Yea! Boston Legal is over now, so no reason to not use Monday Nights to our advantage :) They're back (the ILs) on friday. At which point we will be going away for the weekend together. Have mercy it better be one of those last-minute-luxury-lodge deals so at least I feel like I'm getting something out of it. Have mercy, again I say have mercy.

Labels: QSI, school, work

There were lots of successes in the big ol' trip. One main one was that I survived 6 days at my parents house with NO AGGRO. That might not seem like much to the rest of the planet, but I haven't had spent time with my parents without any aggro since... what... I was 12???? All I know was that it was a combination of 2 things. Everyone growing up, and compromising. I'll be the first one to admit that I have not exactly reached the pinnacle of the QSI, but I'm getting there. Being positive and taking the high road helps a lot. Planning early also helped, I think... have a strategy and put it to work. It also makes other people do the same, I guess. It reminds me of that episode of My Name is Earl where Earl realizes that if he goes back and makes up for stealing his ex-gf's prosthetic leg, and helps his other ex-gf flip her trailer right-side-up again, then his current wife will buy him lemonade and lemon cream cakes.

Anyway the other success was the Mr. and his time there. I have a whole new husband, one that is relaxed and rejuvenated. We had the best time ever and it was such a positive impact on "us" because it was a full 4 weeks of nothing but what WE wanted to do, and relaxing. Not one of those typical holidays where you spend 2 days getting there and back, and one week trying to relax, but only about 2 days of actual relaxing before it's all over. This was full-fledged HOLIDAY.

AND he got along with all my friends really well (well, DUH!)... I'm mainly talking about those he hadn't met yet, most of them he had. It made me feel really good when I asked him (after we got back) who he missed the most and he said probably Brandon. "I finally felt like I had a best friend again" which I thought was sweet. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh how I just wish I could import all my buddies to BW. Then everything would just be all rock n' roll, all the time!!! Or is that just naive??

Labels: mi familia, mis amigos, QSI, xmas 08

We got the shock of our life yesterday when the Mr. went to go collect the post in town. There was a big ol' package from Australia, which is a shock in itself. We had no idea what it could be but when we opened it up, it was so amazing that there were even tears.


Good old Steve & Madongles had taken this photo and gotten it blown up and put onto an absolutely lovely canvas and sent to us:






Apparently it was 2 months in the shipping, but it got here safely and then just rocked our world & get all teary out of nowhere!!


Amazing. People who do nice things for no reason other than out of the kindness of their heart are my biggest inspiration right now. We talked about it on the way home last night and realized that we've both had a couple weeks of backsliding in the big Self Improvement Quest (from here on to be referred to as the QSI) but that these sort of things are the perfect inspiration to combat the nonsense that develops from complacency and stress, causing you to slip back into bad habits of negativity and lack of compassion.

I cite example 2: Just had SheofDC tell me yesterday that a package arrived for me from Missouri at her place (woo hoo!). I know what's in it already, it's my new Phone for the USA Trip that used to be Brandon's but is now being bequeathed to me so that I have a phone with a number and even some minutes loaded up on it already, so that we can be mobile during the month of December. AND his GPS (so we don't get lost trying to find our way back home from the east coast) which he's letting us borrow while we're in the States. Unreal! New gadgets await me before I've even hit the homeland soil!!! Annnnnnnnnd we're back in excitement mode for the holidays!!

The universe is obviously throwing goodness at me in the form of reminders of how good my buddies are. Inspiration taken! I've now got the good juice to move forward, thanks to all these little bits and pieces that really do help so much...

Labels: hounds, mis amigos, QSI

Gearing up for the xmas trip back home.

We're gonna try a new strategy for this one: Being Nice to the Mominator.

The Quest for Self-Improvement continues. I got a small gift handed to me in my lap the other day (I have an agenda for our football game weekend in KC with Brandon, i.e. party time & ruckus raising, and apparently she has an agenda too, i.e. family time on Saturday with the ailing grandparents and now Friday night with the aunt and uncle unit from Nebraska). The gift was that I broke the news to her via email that Saturday night with the gparents was out of the question because we have dinner plans with B & his friends. I battened down the hatches preparing for the hurricane of rage, and instead got something to the effect of "well that's too bad but I understand, we'll entertain the gparents with your cousin who will also be in town, so long as you can give us sunday after the football game for the gparents and friday night for the aunt/uncle unit". I was shocked. So rather than resting on my laurels and celebrating my success in an explosion of selfishness I wrote back a note of thanks for understanding.

Yeah I just saw that big old porker in the sky too... it was all... flap flap flap, oink oink oink.... amazing. Like aurora borealis.

My strategy isn't to bend over backwards and take it up the poop hole from her the whole time I'm home, but my theory is that if I see a slight movement towards halfway, I acknowledge it and say thanks. Maybe this whole parenting theory of positive reinforcement could possibly work on moms too. All I know is she has a thing for compliments, so if I can lay a few of those on like I just did, in advance, maybe I'm laying the groundwork for peace in December. Who knows! I'm just working towards solving my problems with grace and not aggro. We'll see how cooperative SHE is, and see where we go from there. Who knows. I'm not getting my hopes up, because there's one thing I've figured out lately and that is that adults can act like children too. And just because you're on a quest for self improvement doesn't mean everyone else is as well.

So we'll see. Outcome 1 is that we can build on the semi-improved state that we reached when they visited here this year... which I'd rate about a 6 on the Scale of 1-10 of Pleasantness. Outcome 2, is that she looks a gift horse in the mouth and takes advantage of my giving, starts getting used to it, and expects more without giving back.

Hmmm.

Labels: mi familia, QSI

what is WITH this particular moment (or, rather, "chunk of time") in the space-time continuum where so much aggro is trying it's darnedest to suck the life out of the Family W.???

All I know is that for like the last, I dunno, 5 or 6 years I/we haven't had to deal with awkwardness and weirdness and confrontation and... all that. (with the odd mother/daughter BS excepted) It was like 5 or 6 years of simple coasting along with no rocking of the boat. OK with one exception: when I quit my job at JKA and the "J" himself got all psycho and yelly and screamy and viciousy and personal-attacky at me because I was leaving. I remember not sleeping well and obsessing over it and feeling horrible for the weeks surrounding that. When was that? OK that must've been 2004. Right, so the last aggro in my life was in 2004. 4 years of smooth sailing.

With what started as the Great Ma P. Debacle in July (June?) and ended up with me wincing my way through the months that followed with that, as well as the DIFFICULT PERSONALITY (x 2) (we'll call them DPs since I don't want to propagate more evilness by going into what I would REALLY have normally wrote) that we have to deal with on the Animal People committee (it's a volunteer organization here people, come ON!) and other assorted related confrontations, it just makes me wonder: HUH?!
WTF!? What is WITH this year??? Is it ME??? Do I attract this stuff??? (But I went for the last 4 years with no aggro??) OK, well then if it's not me, then WTF!??!

Especially when The Mr. gets it, too. I mean HOW can ANYONE get a case of the aggros with The Mr.? Now this is really making me seethe. Could you not get a more agreeable, more sweet, more non-aggro type of guy than the Mr??? He's so "Winky from 'Best in Show' "!!

Ugh, this Animal People DP really bothers me. On the board, The Mr. is the Treasurer, he is devoting his time, his *very rare free time* to doing all their financials, balancing books, paying salaries, organizing monies, paying bills, depositing checks, counting spare change (by the ton), etc etc etc, and this DP is criticizing the way he does it (this person used to do it all, so obviously has control issues), harping on him, demanding financial breakdowns from him on a moment's notice... and then at the same time This Person is plaguing his work email address with more harping and banging on and demands and what-what-what... it's insane. The worst part is that it makes him so angry that he fires rebuttal emails back to This Person in anger and then the whole thing just snowballs into a big load of aggro that keeps him wound up and uncomfortable.

I had to stop him today from sending This Person a snarky email telling This Person that They are welcome to take over his job if they think they could do so much better. Yikes. So he toned it down and sent it without that line but This Person still sent back a snarky email anyway very much loaded with "How dare yous" and "I'm right and you're wrongs!" AGH! Aggro!!

Not a good spin to put on a cause (the animal peeps) that is close to your heart and that you're doing voluntarily because you believe in it. It's this kind of crap that makes people act stand-offish and reluctant to do anything worthwhile for nothing. I know, because I'm getting it too, from the other DP on the committee who's a control freak and won't let me do my job! The other night at the meeting I even said something I regretted (and I'm paying attention these days before I open my mouth) which may not be a big deal in the pit of aggro circumstances that it happened in, but for me and my new goals of being a better person, it was just a big backslide that I totally didn't need on my conscience. Uggggghh. If the universe is really out to get me, what I said (and regretted) will spread like wildfire through the flames of local gossip and then *I'll* look like an a-hole, rather than the real cluprits. We'll just have to wait and see on that one.

Being a non-confrontational personality (OK not in this blog, per se, but in real life), I'm just desperate to scream out "CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG??!?!?!"

Heck I'm even working on it in this blog - now THAT'S progress. I notice my own cuss rate is down at least a few percent. And as for my new positive vs. negative ratio, I think I'm way up. Which makes me happy. What does NOT make me happy is AGGRO!!!! ESPECIALLY when it drags the Mr. into it's nasty clutches. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........

We are both trying SO HARD these days for self-improvement. Which is why I don't understand the timing of all these confrontational difficulties. Perhaps it's all just a great big test, giving us practice for out in the great big real world, for when we achieve our self improvement goals? I do notice a wee difference in my behaviour, however. That means progress. Where I would've in the past recommended him to "give That Person a verbal ass kicking!! Go on, baby, rip That Person a new ass hole!! That Person deserves no tolerance!!! Here, write what you just screamed out & I'll even proofread it for you when you're done!!" now I'm telling him "Hmmmmm... this might start something worse. Maybe you should just take that last part out?" You know, big picture stuff. -sigh- it's hard. But I'm going to pinch SK's latest quote from her blog which has always been a favourite of mine, but I'm only really grasping it in my personal life over the last couple months, which unfortunately speaks volumes about the "old me" (oops!)

"Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors. Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny."
–Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi

Labels: aggro, animal peeps, QSI, The Mr.

PULA!!
I'm sitting out on the stoep with the laptop listening/watching the first sounds of rain!! And how desperate we are for it!!! We're having our weekly/daily power cut, so that means I have [who knows how long] some time until this battery runs out. So let's see what I can come up with.

Firstly, viva la independencia for Botswana. [oooh lightning! good timing!] A tuesday/wednesday day off combo for us this week. It started bad, then ended good. In what is turning into a trend for me these days, I had about 48 straight hours of mental meltdown which cumulated in some epiphanies, some tears, some hours pounding my pillows, etc. But I think I'm back on top of things now and moving forward. It's just a time in my life right now where I'm second guessing every word that comes out of my mouth and every thought that comes into my head. And so off I go, onto a quest to be a better person. Less negativity, more positivity, more think-before-you-speak-it, more ethics and scruples. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.

Wow the trees are really swirling around and the thunder and lightning is now really shaking things up, but as for the first big fat raindrop... still waiting... it is pretty violent though- I just hope a big fat tree branch doesnt come straight for my head.

Summer is really in full swing now. And my favorite time of day is between 5 and 6:30. With all the chaos in the office these days and our mamoth projects etc., I'm going to have to make a real effort to ensure that I get home at least a few times a week to take advantage of that time. It's so lovely, the heat is just starting to fade, the sun is setting, the puppies are up for playtime, and all the birds come back out from whereever they've been hiding from the 39 degree weather.
OK my keyboard is TOTALLY covered in a layer of sand now...
but here's the positive spin, the reason to be grateful right here and now: JUST before the power went out, I fired up the laptop, popped in the network card, and got on line. THEN the power went out, and here I am - thoroughly enjoying myself out on the stoep, in the dark, hearing the sounds of a storm! and hopefully soon... PULA! I'm thinking some candles would be nice... provided I could figure out a way to not have them blow out.

Right. Candles. Check.
Question - how does one keep the nighttime creepie crawlies off one's laptop screen while outside in the summer????

We got a new camera. I'm still getting used to it, but here are some photos I took on the long mid-week holiday...
Starting with Prisca from next door's son, Prosper:








and with that last photo of sunset over the backyard, I shall sign off!

Labels: BW-general, photos, QSI