A New Look and the Time to Get It

This blog is nearly 5 years old (on April 1!), and I had used the same template the whole time. I'd put a lot of customization on it, but it was still very recognizable as one of the standard Blogger themes. So, I bit the bullet, lost a bunch of my customized things, but got a new look. I like it. Maybe one day I will really branch out and use another service or get a custom template, but this will be fine for now!

So, I stuck in a photo of our little church choir from last week. That is one of the things in my life that I am glad I have time for. Sometimes it's frustrating, like last night when we had 0 sopranos (but it IS spring break and people are busy). I do love choral singing, and am glad to have this opportunity to do that--it complements my rock and roll fun nicely!

Really what I'd wanted to talk about today was being grateful for the last 4 weeks with no work. We've had some good luck and the pressure to work so bills will be paid is off a bit. Now I am looking for work I will enjoy and not stressing about it--and will be thrilled if the folks I have been contracting with are able to provide something to do, too. I still love them!

What's been good, though, is having the time to mindfully do some of the things I have been rushing through while I was working so much and spending so much time at yarn shops. I have been able to not only clean the kitchen, but work on getting it back to where I can enjoy working in it again. I've actually kept it nice and tidy for three weeks even though I have been cooking a lot more, and for some reason that really makes me feel good. I got the family room decluttered for my Pampered Chef party, and it has STAYED that way since then. Perhaps the kids are old enough to not create chaos wherever they go (more likely Beccano's just confining his chaos to his room). The dining room FINALLY does not have a lot of extraneous equipment in it (I lie: there is an upside-down bass amp in there right now, but it just needs to get its wheel reattached and it will roll back into its space). And there is just one pile of computer equipment to move out of the "parlor" and it will be nice, too!

I keep trying to declutter the bedroom, but it comes back. I guess that's next!

Cleaning lets me think. I had not had much time to do that recently. I was too busy panicking. I feel like, at last, I can make future plans that aren't in crisis mode. This helps a lot.

Having this bonus time to myself has also enabled me to meditate more. I have always meditated, since I was a teen, but sometimes I only get a few minutes. I have been able to spend more time meditating, which has always been a boon to my serenity and clarity of thought.

It's funny how sometimes a big catharsis precedes calm. A couple of weeks ago I had to face some issues I'd been avoiding (was really too embarrassed to meet them head on). It was painful at the time for me and a friend, but I got through that, and as a bonus figured out it is OK to not be beloved by everyone, it is OK to prefer to be around positive friends, and it is OK to mess up sometimes and not be understood. I now know who my friends are, bear no ill will toward those who aren't fond of me, and feel like a huge weight is off my shoulders. That's just peachy! I'm rested, relaxed, and ready to face the world!

A new look for the blog means for me, also a new phase in life has started. I think my birthday this year was a significant one. The long, scary phase of most of the 2000s may well be behind me, and I can enjoy my spouse, my children, my friends, my hobbies and my work!

Labor Day. Hmph. Building Dedication. Yay.

It is Labor Day in the US. This holiday honors workers. Well, some of them. It honors workers with traditional jobs that have paid holidays, benefits, and such. These lucky folks get a paid day off work every September to rest, shop and hang out with their families.

However, in the US, more and more companies are outsourcing the kind of work I do. That is how Lee lost the job he had when we met. Those of us doing instructional design, tech writing or editing who were laid off from that particular company (and there were more just a week or two ago) are now wandering around Austin looking for work. Most of us need to settle for contract work. ALE only lets you work 9 months at a time, then you must take three months off. Other places have shorter or longer terms. But you never get to relax a bit and concentrate on a job--you are either just learning one or winding down and frantically looking for another one.

And what do contractors do on Labor Day? We sit at home and lose money. No pay for us. I am not sure how Labor Day is honoring us. And gosh, I hope none of us get sick or hurt on Labor Day, since we have no insurance. And it feels so good knowing most of our country's citizens do not give a hoot if we have any or not. If we wanted insurance, we should just go out and get a REAL job. Um, do you have one for me?

I sound bitter. I am trying not to be bitter. It's hard seeing how people in the US are dividing themselves into factions and picking on each other. Respect has been replaced by fear. Fear of each other and our elected officials. Wow, I did not approve of practically anything our previous administration did, but I did not attack his fans, make up reasons to hate anything he did, or prevent my children from listening to him.

Let's talk about something else.

Look, here are some nice photos. This is Rebecca, our choir director at church, hoping she can avoid talking (she didn't) at a really nice ceremony we had that dedicated the music building (an old school portable building) at our church to our beloved founding member, Bill Sauber. He left us a good amount of money for our music programs when he passed away, so we decided to honor him by dedicating the building to him.


Joe, our music committee chair, read Bill's obituary (from 2005), and then 4 or 5 of us shared some memories.
Here I am with the sign we had made and a couple of pictures of Bill. He was a great musician and very intelligent man. I learned a lot from singing with him. He also was an original member of our church, back when it was a lot of fun and very family oriented. Sorry the photo is blurry--no one believes me when I tell them they have to hold the phone still when taking photos with it!

Ricky, the choir director's husband and official church carpenter, hung the sign. What you don't see are all the "helpers" telling him exactly where to hang it. That was pretty funny. Thanks to Sam for taking the picture when my camera filled up.


Lots of good stuff has happened this weekend, tempering my bitterness. Tuba Boy came home for dinner both Saturday and Sunday nights, and I really enjoyed getting to hear how he is doing, what fun he's having, and what he's learning. I really cracked up when he told me in great detail about how he and his dorm companions built a fort in the common area. What a hoot. They are all crawling in there and watching movies on their laptops. Lots of kid left in those young adults!

And as I mentioned on my knitting blog, I taught a bunch of people at a MENSA conference yesterday. Everyone was darned nice and they had some interesting sessions, like clock making. They also had a margarita machine, so they seemed like a fun bunch. I am glad a nice family from church invited me to do this!

Oh, and it rained twice this weekend. Unfortunately one of those welcome rain events (we are in the worst drought in like a hundred years) came during this Friday's football game. Lots of lightning kept the players and band in shelter (buses for us) for about 1.5 hours, but eventually they let us out and had the game. As you can see, it did rain. Don't we look festive in our yellow?

Not only were we wet, but the game was awful. Whew, our team was bad. That always makes sitting on hard aluminum even less fun! On the other hand, it has also been the hottest summer ever here, and the rain kept the temperatures down. So, it could be worse!

More updates next week!

A Nice Chatty Update

Well, finally I am caught up a wee bit and can write something! First, I had to do a lot of work in my fine new job. Oh, but that's OK. I love my fine new job, and think this week I'll finally have 5 days of work in, too. I will love that part the most. I get to work from home, in coffee shops, and sometimes in their spartan little office. Working in the office is great because everyone is so freaking NICE. And smart. And funny. What a relief to have that to say after all this time! And they are friendly--I get asked out to lunch and everything!

And look, we have a happy volunteer sunflower to symbolize how nice that is!



Second, I finally got my wonderful new computer, a Dell Studio 17 with red swirly things on it. I guess I should have put a picture of that on here instead of the nice flowers, so OK, I will go find one. Here's what it looks like:



Setting it up was a bit of a challenge. I tried this lovely Windows Vista "Easy Transfer" utility. Oh that was a good one, all right. I spent four hours trying to move files from my beautiful red Dell 15" model, only to end up that nothing transferred except all the user accounts. Great. All that was during a very stressful work emergency, too, which meant that the time I had planned to spend on Thursday of last week blogging was spent working all night. But, it's OK...

I like the computer a lot now. The high-resolution screen is awesome. I can really see all those incredibly detailed PowerPoints I have to edit, and I look forward to Articulate 09 work on them (that is fun and expensive instructional design software I get to use. woo hoo. I moved all the pictures, all the software and everything else I need. Now I just have to set up Quicken so I can be an Independent Contractor Who Files Her Taxes Right and all will be well. I also got a really nice mouse, which is a red curved USB one from Microsoft (I know, boo, hiss) that folds up into a little egg shape for easy travel. So, now I am little miss modern worker. And it is good for play, too!!




Our garden is getting just lovely. This is one of our roses from last year. All of them are blooming beautifully, including the tiny red ones. We'd thought the wildflower bed Lee planted was a bust, but to the contrary, it's gone nuts--there is even a big ole pink poppy in there now! Lots of phlox in various colors, some white things, sunflowers from last year and such. I see basil coming up from last year, and we have all kinds of onions going. And at last the tomatoes have started to grow. Our soil is so bad for them, but the more compost Lee puts on, the better!



After Thursday of last week, things got good. I had a ton of fun at work on Friday, then went to Pilar's surprise 40th birthday party. The next two photos are stolen from Cindy (hey, thanks, Cindy), but I took a whole bunch of photos of her, so I know she won't mind me borrowing a couple. To prove I really was there, this is a photo of my and Diane. We had been enjoying the beer. The food was great, too. MMMMM. The best part, though was that Pilar was actually surprised, mainly because no one told Miss T. it was going to happen. A 5-year-old can't hold info like that in!


Here you see Pilar in her sweet 16 birthday sash, still looking a bit overwhelmed, while Lee tries to tell Miss T something and I show how bad my posture really is. At right is Pat telling a joke. That happened a lot. We all had a very good time, and what was even better was that our husbands got to know each other, too. Lee and Cindy's husband (Bryan with a y I think), had a nice manly chat on the patio about power tools. We all kept saying how nice it would be to do more social things. Of course, we can't rent a beautiful club house every time. The one the party was at is just in the next neighborhood from here. Maybe we should rent our clubhouse some time!



And finally, what is the first "real" post of May without a Maypole photo? We had a really nice one at church on Sunday, and here is proof. We also did our choir concert, with was Schubert's Mass in G. We actually pulled it off, thanks to a whole bunch of additional recruits and two wonderful borrowed soloists, plus a fine accompanist. I enjoyed it a lot.

OK, that is enough blogging and photos for one post. I should save something up to write about later in the week, huh? Thanks for your patience while I was feeling upset and/or busy. Everything is good now, even if it's different.

I'll Have a Blue Solstice without You...

It's been a weird few days for me, emotionally. Really, there is nothing horribly wrong, but I am just having seasonal blues, I guess.

So...

HAPPY YULE OR SOLSTICE TO MY FELLOW CELEBRANTS!

We plan to celebrate by going to a former work colleague's house for a party, and maybe somewhere else. We can't stay too late, because, sigh, tomorrow my kids leave for 5 days in Wisconsin the the step-grands. I am glad they get to go, but I will miss seeing Beccano with His Precious Guitar (that's them in the picture), and I am worried about Tuba Boy, who seems to be separated from Lovely Girlfriend all of a sudden (they were perfectly fine when I last saw them at 11 pm last night, and certainly were ACTING friendly). And of course, he won't talk about it. I will certainly miss her cheerful presence, but more, I will miss HIS cheerfulness for the past month or so. It was so nice having him in a good mood. He even hugged me recently without me asking him to.

Of course, I'll still have Lee and Rose. They add cheer to the home. But I am also really sad at Gwynneth's declining ability to walk. I really feel bad for her, and she keeps getting worse, then getting better. So I don't know what to do.

Today we had the annual "choir service" at church, when we usually do some sort of lovely music full of holiday cheer. This year we had "the children" as they are always called at our church, to help. None of them would sing by themselves, so we also got "the parents." It was an entire program of the Best of Bing Crosby and the Muppets Christmas. Oh, and that Peanuts song. The program had a lot of hitches, drama, crying, whining and walking on the stage in tap shoes (what parent REALLY puts those on a kid to walk back and forth across a stage in?).

OK, so I am obviously grumpy, but I got a bad feeling during the whole thing, and I got less and less able to sing. I found out later that there was some upsetness off-stage that I was sort of tuning into, I guess. Nonetheless, I did a great job on a solo on the prelude to "Silver Bells," (which was supposed to be someone else's but she didn't show), and I did a really hilarious job making a horse whinny at the end of Sleigh Ride (the high school band should hire me next year). I just KNEW all those years practicing being a horse as a small child would come in handy later in life! Too bad I did not do as well on a descant later in that song, which the person who violently volunteered to do decided she didn't like the melody so she wouldn't.

What I have decided is that it is a GOOD thing I am not the leader of any group of volunteer performers. You sure get what you get. Choir members who skip most all the rehearsals then expect to be in the show. Ones who you can practically count on to get sick when they are the only one on a part, or the only member of their section who can actually sing. People who, when told what to wear to a concert, decide that applies to everyone BUT them. I am afraid I'd say something about these things, which of course does not encourage future participation. Glad I am just a grumpy over-achieving member of a small, not-too-talented church choir. And I am glad that for all their flaws, I am very fond of the choir members and their families.

Christmas Eve will be better. Lee has learned his part and I think I can start out "What Child Is This" on the right note. That is all I have to do. We just sing some carols, and the alto part is always d-d-d-d-d-b-d-d-d on those. Note that exciting "b" thrown in there!

I have two hours to get in a better mood, so I will resist the urge to do that by sampling the new Wild Turkey American Honey liqueur I got last night (after a lovely sushi dinner with Lee while the kids were at the Trail of Lights with the Tuba Section). (Tastes like Drambuie, only cheaper!) Heck, I have a lovely new red cowl-neck shirt and dark trouser-leg jeans (because that is what you were supposed to wear at church today), so I will look fine. Go me.

My solstice wish: that you take solace in friends and family during these challenging times and remember that there is beauty everywhere around you. Look for it!

Interesting Voting Stats

My friend the yarn dyer in Houston posted this link to how many people in various Texas counties have voted in the early voting. It's only the fourth day and over 7% in my county have voted.

People sure are interested. We have an old dude at our early voting location who hates to type, so he gives anyone who shows up with their driver's license in hand rather than their voter registration card (even though you ARE allowed to use the DL). My coworker who is my neighbor had the misfortune to have her DL not scan, so had to delay many people while he painfully typed in her info. I sure was amused to find him working when I went in to vote. It was nice to hear people all being positive about the experience. All the people in line seemed genuinely happy to have the chance to participate.

I was going to do some volunteer work on Monday at the party HQ, but forgot there is yet another band event that night (I had put it on the wrong date in my calendar). I will let them know, and instead do some of the "get out and vote" calls to members of my own party (I really don't want to get yelled at too much, and that should help).

I am even getting a bit band-weary myself, though looking forward to the Area competition. I am really sad that Tuba Boy has to help at a debate tournament on Halloween weekend and thus will miss his last home game as a senior. I always love the moment when they all get introduced, but my boy will not be there. Of course, it's good he is helping so much at the tournament.

Sigh. I need to do some rock and roll. As soon as all our home repairs are done, I hope to. Choir is so messed up that I have to sing the soprano part on our lovely number this Sunday. Alone. Bear in mind, I am an alto. It goes up to G, the high one. At least it isn't A, the one I can do, but it is not pretty. The song for Sunday is an old, old Elizabethan one and very pretty. Too bad none of the good singers will be there.

Wow, this is long for a quick post about that link. Anyway, if you are local, check out your county stats!