I've been in a state of unrest and uneasiness. Something about my life is rubbing me the wrong way but I can't quite put my finger on it. Somehow I am not satisfied. I have a great husband who's only goal in life is to be able to take care of me in all ways -- what more could I ask for? I have a challenging job that pays me very good money -- what more could I ask for? I have many wonderful friends and family who would do anything in the world for me -- what more could I ask for? I have fantastic hobbies that keep my craving for creativity at bay -- what more could I ask for?
But I'm struggling and dissatisfied...restless even.
But tonight we had pizza delivered and in addition to to my pepperoni pizza we order every Tuesday night, our delivery guy delivered the pizza and a message. It's the same young man who delivers our pizza every Tuesday night. Usually Andy gets the door but for the last few weeks, I have been answering the door. The first time, our delivery guy introduced himself and asked me my name. From that first night on, he remembered my name. I can not remember his.
Tonight, he took the money and turned to get into his car. Then he stopped and turned around. He was sort of embarrassed and didn't know how to say what he needed to say. He asked my permission if he could tell me something that might be a little weird. He stumbled on his words and finally just said, "OK, I know it is weird but I felt like on the drive over here God wanted me to give you a message." He said this kind of breathless and rushed through the words.
"God wants you to know that all this doubt and restlessness you are feeling...God wants you to know that He can give you everything that you want."
I am not a religious person -- but I am spiritual. I believe in nature and the goodness of people and dogs...which is just God backwards. Dog is my co-pilot or in my case Dogs. But I digress. Most of the time I'm very uncomfortable when someone says something like this to me but tonight I didn't fell weird. I just felt like he was telling me the truth.
Oh I could go on forever with reasons why I logically can't believe in a higher being and how organized religion is really a flawed institution. But, that's not the point. I smell change in the air. I love the smell of change!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
What are we marketing to our kids????
So I came across this commercial for Barbie, the iconic fashion doll for all ages. As a dog lover/addict I was pleased to see that Barbarie was a responsible dog owner. The doll and dog comes with treats and a fancy pink and purple poopa scoopa vacuum thingy. Then I watched the commercial.
Disturbing, unsanitary, inhumane are just three words that immediately come to mind. As the owner of five dogs and one who suffers from coprohagia it is NOT a good idea to show a dog eating its own poop! A child's imagination can only go so far and this is way more disturbing and up there with mom and dad having sex! Poop is taboo! I don't care if everyone poops...we don't have toys that advocate a being munching down on their waste!
Ok so this toy came to market in 2006 and in November 2006, Mattel had a voluntary recall of Barbie and Tanner. It wasn't because people were outraged at Tanner eating his poop that Mattel recalled. It was a magnet problem with the pooper scooper.
What other crazy toys have you seen? or products? One of my all-time favorites is still the Chia Pet bust where you get a nice bald guy and you end up with a 1970s guy with a bad perm! Like the guy on the 70's Show...you know -- Donna's dad. Ok so speaking of the 70's Show, did you know that the last chick who was on Charlie's Angel...Tanya someone or other...played Donna's Mom? How do you make a hot redhead from a dorky guy with a bad perm and a sort of cougar-like lady? Ahhh the wonderful career of D-list players in the afterlife!
Disturbing, unsanitary, inhumane are just three words that immediately come to mind. As the owner of five dogs and one who suffers from coprohagia it is NOT a good idea to show a dog eating its own poop! A child's imagination can only go so far and this is way more disturbing and up there with mom and dad having sex! Poop is taboo! I don't care if everyone poops...we don't have toys that advocate a being munching down on their waste!
Ok so this toy came to market in 2006 and in November 2006, Mattel had a voluntary recall of Barbie and Tanner. It wasn't because people were outraged at Tanner eating his poop that Mattel recalled. It was a magnet problem with the pooper scooper.
What other crazy toys have you seen? or products? One of my all-time favorites is still the Chia Pet bust where you get a nice bald guy and you end up with a 1970s guy with a bad perm! Like the guy on the 70's Show...you know -- Donna's dad. Ok so speaking of the 70's Show, did you know that the last chick who was on Charlie's Angel...Tanya someone or other...played Donna's Mom? How do you make a hot redhead from a dorky guy with a bad perm and a sort of cougar-like lady? Ahhh the wonderful career of D-list players in the afterlife!
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Doing What You Love to Do...or maybe just liking it!
In case anyone has been locked in a magical castle away from the world we live in or perhaps you live in Washington DC, the economy still sucks! Things don't seem to be getting better. I know people who have been out of work after being laid off from a major corporation for a year. My husband was one of them. After almost a year to the day of being laid off he took a job.
Don't get me wrong, he's enjoying it. He now goes into an office after working from home for 10 years. The adjustment to getting up at 6am every morning has taken its toll but he thoroughly enjoys working with people. Is it his dream job? No, but it gets him back out into the workplace. Suddenly my thoroughly depressed husband is now a more energetic and very busy guy.
So where was this energy when he should have been exploring new paths and deciding what he wanted to pursue rather than having to take the first job offered? Well, readers, men are wired differently. I know every self-help book out there talks about that but I was not a full believer that Men are from Mars. Often in my relationship with Andy, he's taken on a more feminine point view on things. He was raised with women. I was raised with men. He cries at movies. I pass out the tissues. My husband is all man for sure but I thought he was raised on Venus.
Until the layoff. Like a lion who's instinct is to hunt, my husbands instinct came through. He was supposed to be the hunter of the family. When I asked him what he wanted to do the only clear answer I got was to make enough money so that I didn't have to work. What????
We have no children. I have never expressed that I didn't want to work. But in his head he had the measure of success as being that I don't have to work. During this last year of unemployment I joked that I was his "Sugar Mama" but didn't realize how deeply he felt a certain amount of failure for a) not earning more money than me and b) not being in a situation that I could sit all day eating bon bons.
I looked at his layoff as being an opportunity for him. I would love to have six months to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up...if I ever grew up. I would be looking forward to what is to come. He saw his layoff as his own personal failure. He spent hours evaluating what happened and what he should have done differently. He couldn't get his arms around changing thought process and making this into a positive. The words coming out of his mouth would say something like, "Oh I'm glad I'm the one laid off instead of the one staying and doing the work of five," but then he would agonize over what he did wrong.
Now that he's back at work, he's down on himself that it is not a high level job. What does "finding yourself" mean to you? Ideally, you want to do something you love and get paid a lot of money for it but if we are honest with ourselves, that seldom happens. Do you want a job doing what you love and not make the big bucks or do you want a job with a great salary doing something "ok"?
As life is not that cut and dry the answer depends on your circumstances. So today we have jobs that we like but we're still on the lookout for that one that you can be passionate about.
PS I miss my husband being home with me!
Don't get me wrong, he's enjoying it. He now goes into an office after working from home for 10 years. The adjustment to getting up at 6am every morning has taken its toll but he thoroughly enjoys working with people. Is it his dream job? No, but it gets him back out into the workplace. Suddenly my thoroughly depressed husband is now a more energetic and very busy guy.
So where was this energy when he should have been exploring new paths and deciding what he wanted to pursue rather than having to take the first job offered? Well, readers, men are wired differently. I know every self-help book out there talks about that but I was not a full believer that Men are from Mars. Often in my relationship with Andy, he's taken on a more feminine point view on things. He was raised with women. I was raised with men. He cries at movies. I pass out the tissues. My husband is all man for sure but I thought he was raised on Venus.
Until the layoff. Like a lion who's instinct is to hunt, my husbands instinct came through. He was supposed to be the hunter of the family. When I asked him what he wanted to do the only clear answer I got was to make enough money so that I didn't have to work. What????
We have no children. I have never expressed that I didn't want to work. But in his head he had the measure of success as being that I don't have to work. During this last year of unemployment I joked that I was his "Sugar Mama" but didn't realize how deeply he felt a certain amount of failure for a) not earning more money than me and b) not being in a situation that I could sit all day eating bon bons.
I looked at his layoff as being an opportunity for him. I would love to have six months to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up...if I ever grew up. I would be looking forward to what is to come. He saw his layoff as his own personal failure. He spent hours evaluating what happened and what he should have done differently. He couldn't get his arms around changing thought process and making this into a positive. The words coming out of his mouth would say something like, "Oh I'm glad I'm the one laid off instead of the one staying and doing the work of five," but then he would agonize over what he did wrong.
Now that he's back at work, he's down on himself that it is not a high level job. What does "finding yourself" mean to you? Ideally, you want to do something you love and get paid a lot of money for it but if we are honest with ourselves, that seldom happens. Do you want a job doing what you love and not make the big bucks or do you want a job with a great salary doing something "ok"?
As life is not that cut and dry the answer depends on your circumstances. So today we have jobs that we like but we're still on the lookout for that one that you can be passionate about.
PS I miss my husband being home with me!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Everyone just needs to put on their Big Girl or Big Boy pants!
I just took the high dive off the deep end. I'm talking uncontrollable crying, psycho screaming, boo boo face, hitched breathe -- the works. This was the day after my Book Club's "self help" night and my proclamation (after reading Live Oprah for my book) that I'm going to be more positive and not let work, husband's unemployment, my illness get me down. I was going to be the optimistic, cup-is-half-full kind of gal.
I jinxed myself.
After a record breaking 12 days into 2010, I was ready to throw in the towel at work, get a divorce and go live in a cave. So i had my emotional hissy fits and tried to come to grips with what was going on (CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING CONTENT MAY SURPRISE AND/OR SUBJECT PEOPLE TO COLD SWEATS, DISILLUSIONMENT AND TEMPORARY LOSS OF HOPE).
1) I do not have super powers, a marvy utility belt or even an underwear-on-the-outside super hero outfit (ok I do have a cape and keep it ready just in case).
2) I ask for help but for some reason both at work and at home the words coming out of my mouth must not be spoken in a language understood by all.
3) Life circumstances are continuously changing so nothing is ever written in stone.
At work, there seems to be a secret language of words and actions. No one does what they say they will do and at the end of the day it is your job to get things done but don't be an enabler but give clear direction and guidance but let people figure out how to do their job but don't do it for them when you are dangerously close to not making a deadline but maybe you can do it just this one time but don't make that a practice but allow enough time to get the work done but be reactive to impossible deadlines but don't tell anyone you can't do because you may then become someone not considered a valuable resource but this one time work 13 hours but don't make that a practice. These are the million little voices pounding my brain -- ALL THE TIME. It's like Elvis and Costello's "Who's on First" routine. By the time I get up from my desk and move away from the computer at the end of the day, and go home (downstairs), I'm faced with nothing that I need done around the house completed. And suddenly, I'm in the pits of despair and feel like the world is ganging up on me and no one is paying attention to my daily pleas, my daily begging for help.
To understand this phenomenon, you must examine how one asks for help --
1) direct request from one person to the next, "Could you do the section of the presentation on blind mice" or "Could you empty the dishwasher?"
2) A communal plan of what needs to be done to accomplish the task like a project plan or a "Honey Do" list on the refrigerator
3) An overall assignment of tasks in a specific area to one owner like all areas of this project pertaining to blind mice will be done teammate X or "Honey you are responsible to get the garbage to the curb on Thursday Nights."
These seem like reasonable and viable paths to asking for help, partnering with your team or you spouse. Possibly they are as straight-forward as they seem and methods that are very successful for other people. Just not me.
I need people to put on their big girl and big boy panties and take ownership of areas without me having to spell out each and every specific task. Right now, my husband has two areas of responsibility: a) searching for a job and b) being an adult, homeowner who partners with me to do stuff around the house like put away our tools, put on a new toilet paper roll when he uses the last of it, take on some of the tasks on the Honey Do list that have already been assigned to him.
Am I doomed to the status of Enabler? Try them on for size and help a girl out!
I jinxed myself.
After a record breaking 12 days into 2010, I was ready to throw in the towel at work, get a divorce and go live in a cave. So i had my emotional hissy fits and tried to come to grips with what was going on (CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING CONTENT MAY SURPRISE AND/OR SUBJECT PEOPLE TO COLD SWEATS, DISILLUSIONMENT AND TEMPORARY LOSS OF HOPE).
1) I do not have super powers, a marvy utility belt or even an underwear-on-the-outside super hero outfit (ok I do have a cape and keep it ready just in case).
2) I ask for help but for some reason both at work and at home the words coming out of my mouth must not be spoken in a language understood by all.
3) Life circumstances are continuously changing so nothing is ever written in stone.
At work, there seems to be a secret language of words and actions. No one does what they say they will do and at the end of the day it is your job to get things done but don't be an enabler but give clear direction and guidance but let people figure out how to do their job but don't do it for them when you are dangerously close to not making a deadline but maybe you can do it just this one time but don't make that a practice but allow enough time to get the work done but be reactive to impossible deadlines but don't tell anyone you can't do because you may then become someone not considered a valuable resource but this one time work 13 hours but don't make that a practice. These are the million little voices pounding my brain -- ALL THE TIME. It's like Elvis and Costello's "Who's on First" routine. By the time I get up from my desk and move away from the computer at the end of the day, and go home (downstairs), I'm faced with nothing that I need done around the house completed. And suddenly, I'm in the pits of despair and feel like the world is ganging up on me and no one is paying attention to my daily pleas, my daily begging for help.
To understand this phenomenon, you must examine how one asks for help --
1) direct request from one person to the next, "Could you do the section of the presentation on blind mice" or "Could you empty the dishwasher?"
2) A communal plan of what needs to be done to accomplish the task like a project plan or a "Honey Do" list on the refrigerator
3) An overall assignment of tasks in a specific area to one owner like all areas of this project pertaining to blind mice will be done teammate X or "Honey you are responsible to get the garbage to the curb on Thursday Nights."
These seem like reasonable and viable paths to asking for help, partnering with your team or you spouse. Possibly they are as straight-forward as they seem and methods that are very successful for other people. Just not me.
I need people to put on their big girl and big boy panties and take ownership of areas without me having to spell out each and every specific task. Right now, my husband has two areas of responsibility: a) searching for a job and b) being an adult, homeowner who partners with me to do stuff around the house like put away our tools, put on a new toilet paper roll when he uses the last of it, take on some of the tasks on the Honey Do list that have already been assigned to him.
Am I doomed to the status of Enabler? Try them on for size and help a girl out!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
