First, I'll tell you what I DID do today:
-- checked e-mail about 1,000 times...read, responded to and archived most of today's crop
-- wrote a letter to an editor
-- tried to fun a 5K; instead ran a 2.5K and rode my bike about 5K to and from a local park
-- met my husband for Friday lunch date
-- scrubbed shower grout with a toothbrush
-- scrubbed two toilets
-- folded two loads of laundry
-- shopped for groceries
-- got the oil changed in my hoopty mom van
-- delivered 3 lawn signs for the library campaign
-- made dinner
-- had three separate and engaging phone conversations with the same person for approx. 90 combined minutes
-- ordered my children around so they could do two loads of their own laundry
-- shopped for a Bat Mitzvah gift and card
-- purchased a Father's Day gift
-- engaged in a spirited online debate over reckless youth and their stupid antics
-- ate some java chip ice cream
Did you notice I said scrubbed shower grout with a toothbrush and scrubbed two toilets???
That right there should have been the only clue anyone needed to figure out that what I ACTUALLY did all day consisted of one thing...and one thing only:
I PROCRASTINATED.
I did all of that today to avoid doing the only thing I really should have gotten done today.
And I'm not sorry.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Tuesday TMI
I feel like I've finally lost enough weight that I would consider wearing a bikini again.
But only at a nude beach.
But only at a nude beach.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Work Smarter Not Harder?
When I was in elementary and middle school, we heard tales of a paper-free society because of the efficiency of technology and computers. Judging by the MOUNDS of filing I was paid to do in college at the world headquarters of a renowned staffing agency, that prediction wasn't coming to fruition anytime soon.
As more people embraced e-mail, word came down once again. E-mails would eliminate the need for paper letters and memos. That is, of course, unless you wanted to PRINT all those e-mailed jokes, recipes, love letters and very important communications.
More recently, smartphones hinted at a total meshing of all communications media into one neat little package in our hip pockets. How SIMPLE that would make life!!
Looking at my desk right now? I'm not seeing it at all.
For one thing, my life is one big avalanche of paper. At any given time, I have stacks of papers organized by priority of importance.
To the left of my laptop is the HOT pile. Those items needed to be addressed YESTERDAY, and I look at them every time I sit down to check e-mail and get to work. To the right is next in line and/or long-term storage for ongoing issues. I may not have to return to them right away, but they need to stay parked for now. Both pull-out ledges stacked with projects also in progress, but of an ongoing nature. Stuff will get put there every day or so, worked on, removed and ledges returned to their proper and retracted position.
Moreover, all this technology has not made my life simpler at all; it's made it far more complicated. There are e-mails on several different accounts to read daily and 'file,' there are FB accounts and group pages to moderate and keep up with, there are cell phone texts and voice mails, and landline voice mails -- though I have a special tool to help with the landline messages. When the blinking light of waiting messages gets to be overwhelming, I simply cover it up with a little knit thingy my daughter made me.
No see blinky, no worry about blinky.
(Anyone who REALLY needs me calls the cell anyway. And that's on vibrate so often I don't even notice, so it can't bother me too much, either. Heh.)
People like me are definitely working smarter with technology. But it has also made us work harder...to keep up, to keep informed, and to keep in touch all the time.
Except, of course, when your voice mail is being ignored.
As more people embraced e-mail, word came down once again. E-mails would eliminate the need for paper letters and memos. That is, of course, unless you wanted to PRINT all those e-mailed jokes, recipes, love letters and very important communications.
More recently, smartphones hinted at a total meshing of all communications media into one neat little package in our hip pockets. How SIMPLE that would make life!!
Looking at my desk right now? I'm not seeing it at all.
For one thing, my life is one big avalanche of paper. At any given time, I have stacks of papers organized by priority of importance.
To the left of my laptop is the HOT pile. Those items needed to be addressed YESTERDAY, and I look at them every time I sit down to check e-mail and get to work. To the right is next in line and/or long-term storage for ongoing issues. I may not have to return to them right away, but they need to stay parked for now. Both pull-out ledges stacked with projects also in progress, but of an ongoing nature. Stuff will get put there every day or so, worked on, removed and ledges returned to their proper and retracted position.
Moreover, all this technology has not made my life simpler at all; it's made it far more complicated. There are e-mails on several different accounts to read daily and 'file,' there are FB accounts and group pages to moderate and keep up with, there are cell phone texts and voice mails, and landline voice mails -- though I have a special tool to help with the landline messages. When the blinking light of waiting messages gets to be overwhelming, I simply cover it up with a little knit thingy my daughter made me.
No see blinky, no worry about blinky.
(Anyone who REALLY needs me calls the cell anyway. And that's on vibrate so often I don't even notice, so it can't bother me too much, either. Heh.)
People like me are definitely working smarter with technology. But it has also made us work harder...to keep up, to keep informed, and to keep in touch all the time.
Except, of course, when your voice mail is being ignored.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Haunted
I remember every moment of my early days of teaching. The faces of my kids, the lessons, the parents…all burned in my memory for various reasons. But in the dark recesses of my mind, what are the memories that haunt me? Who do I remember MOST vividly?
The students I failed…failed miserably, even. Twenty years later, I can go back to a moment and feel tremendous regret that I quite possibly destroyed someone’s self-esteem and spirit.
One boy in particular weighs heavily on my heart. I can still feel the heat of a June day as I stood in the back of the church at graduation practice. This boy was on my LAST NERVE…and I was wound tight. Just finishing my last year of my first full-time position, I was just barely holding it together. I had only sort of figured out what to do every day, had gotten these kids through the school year and their Confirmation preparation and mass, was closing in on my first graduating class from the Catholic K-8, and was planning my wedding.
(What young woman doesn’t lose her mind while planning a wedding???)
By the way, that wedding? It was scheduled for two weeks after the last day of school. TWO WEEKS! To say that I was overwhelmed and stressed is a huge understatement. Much of the time, I had NO IDEA what I was doing, and losing control of my class was one of my biggest fears. I felt the need to assert myself at every opportunity, and I was desperate to keep a handle on everyone and everything.
So…back to that moment at church. It was the end of a long hot day…the end of the school year for the 8th grade…the last chance I had to create a lasting impression. And this boy was doing the unthinkable – HAVING FUN. That’s right…he was cracking jokes, smiling, distracting his friends…all while I was frantically trying to line them up in order from shortest to tallest so we could practice processing into church.
I lost my mind. I dragged him out of line by the arm, pulled him to the back of linw, and spoke through clenched teeth in irrational anger.
“I don’t want to HEAR YOU, I don’t want to SEE YOU, I don’t want to SENSE YOU IN MY AURA! You are a DISAPPOINTMENT, and I’m ASHAMED to know you!”
Ouch.
You read that correctly. I told him I was ashamed of him…for what? Talking out of turn?? Are you kidding me? Today, if one of my kids was guilty of the same, I’d probably walk up to him/her and mock swat him upside the head, Leroy Jethro Gibbs style (NCIS reference). I’d glare menacingly, then crack up in laughter, unable to pretend that I was truly angry.
But back then? I was young. Stupid. Insecure enough that I thought exercising my authority over a 14 year old boy was going to establish me as his superior in all ways…that I would be defined by my ultimate power over him.
It makes me a little bit sick to think I did that.
Today, I rarely lose my temper. And when I do…my kids know they’ve really stepped in it.
I have also established a favorite kind of boy to teach. They are the ones just like that boy from so long ago…the ones who are a little bit out of line…a little too spirited…too unmotivated to do what they’re told. Ultimately, they are the ones who have some burden on their soul, something that they’re compensating for with the humor and ‘bad’ behavior. I want to help them…bring them to the fullest of their potential.
I want to erase the damage I did to the boy from twenty years ago. I wish I could take it back. It’s on my mind more often than seems reasonable, especially at this time of year when we trek over to a similar church to practice a similar ceremony. I wonder what happened to him…if he remembers that moment, too, and hates me for it.
I remember everything. And I hope I’m forgiven for the worst of it.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
I Knew It Would Come Back to Me...
The other day, a friend posted this status on Facebook:
Life is what you make it.
It confirmed something I've long been fearing: there really isn't anyone else to blame.
Rats.
Life is what you make it.
It confirmed something I've long been fearing: there really isn't anyone else to blame.
Rats.
Just Write It
I've always had the intent to be a great writer...but when it comes down to it, I'm not sure I have the patience and fortitude to be truly great. And why should I be? Millions seem to be made from just average effort. For instance, when I read some of the popular chick-lit novels of today, I think, "I could do that in my sleep!" The stories seem so predictable, the characters barely more than two-dimensional stereotypes, and the settings nearly interchangeable. Who couldn't just bang one out, send it to a publisher, and get rich overnight, right???
Well, admittedly, it is a bit more complicated than that. For one thing, you have to actually put the words down on paper. Most of my writing is done in my head while I'm driving, in the shower, or otherwise occupied with something to which I should be giving my 100% attention. And because I have a habit of taking on more than I can realistically handle, I rarely have uninterrupted time to just sit and write. When I finally get to the keyboard, I am so tired I tend to sit and stare at the screen for frustratingly long moments. I'll see something out of the corner of my eye that causes me to move or make a noise, and that usually leads to a dog barking to be let out. Or another tab on my browser will update with a Facebook notification or an e-mail that I simply MUST check before I go on. At that moment, a child will come in and tell me that the other one just ate her granola bar that was meant for school lunches and HOW DARE SHE and can't I go yell at her RIGHT NOW for this grievous injustice???
As you can see it's a little difficult to dedicate time and effort to writing in my typical environment and state of mind.
If I'm lucky, I'll have jotted down a quick idea in a meeting, at church, while at school...anywhere my mind starts to wander. I have started carrying a Moleskin journal in each purse so that I can be ready when that inspiration strikes. In fact, I seem to have no shortage of great first lines and titles. Surely those will carry a full story line through to completion someday. After all, if a two minute Saturday Night Live skit can carry a two- hour movie, why couldn't my pithy penciled observations result in a two hundred page novel on the "Buy One, Get One Half-Off" table at Borders?
Until then, I tend to write brief essays in frenetic spurts of inspiration. When the mood strikes, I find I have to get the words out as quickly as possible before I lose that thought or get dragged away. It's not uncommon for me to have a document open and to be hopping up and down to stir dinner, bark orders at a kid, or to let a dog in or out before running back in to finish a sentence. I often have a list at the bottom of the document that is just a strings of words to remember to address in case I get called away completely. Blogging seems to be the happy medium for a writer like me. No deadlines, no standard word limits, no required commitment. Win, win, win!
And it's a good thing; as I get older, I am beginning to suspect that I have also lived most of my adult life in a state of undiagnosed ADHD. If the idea isn't written down, it's gone forever. If I get stopped mid-essay, it often is left open on the desktop until a forced reboot causes it to be lost in data-space. I've made hypothetical millions off unfulfilled good intentions.
Someday, you might get to purchase my first novel at deep-discount prices. Until then, you can find me here when I feel like it writing what I think is interesting as quickly as I can before someone eats a granola bar.
Well, admittedly, it is a bit more complicated than that. For one thing, you have to actually put the words down on paper. Most of my writing is done in my head while I'm driving, in the shower, or otherwise occupied with something to which I should be giving my 100% attention. And because I have a habit of taking on more than I can realistically handle, I rarely have uninterrupted time to just sit and write. When I finally get to the keyboard, I am so tired I tend to sit and stare at the screen for frustratingly long moments. I'll see something out of the corner of my eye that causes me to move or make a noise, and that usually leads to a dog barking to be let out. Or another tab on my browser will update with a Facebook notification or an e-mail that I simply MUST check before I go on. At that moment, a child will come in and tell me that the other one just ate her granola bar that was meant for school lunches and HOW DARE SHE and can't I go yell at her RIGHT NOW for this grievous injustice???
As you can see it's a little difficult to dedicate time and effort to writing in my typical environment and state of mind.
If I'm lucky, I'll have jotted down a quick idea in a meeting, at church, while at school...anywhere my mind starts to wander. I have started carrying a Moleskin journal in each purse so that I can be ready when that inspiration strikes. In fact, I seem to have no shortage of great first lines and titles. Surely those will carry a full story line through to completion someday. After all, if a two minute Saturday Night Live skit can carry a two- hour movie, why couldn't my pithy penciled observations result in a two hundred page novel on the "Buy One, Get One Half-Off" table at Borders?
Until then, I tend to write brief essays in frenetic spurts of inspiration. When the mood strikes, I find I have to get the words out as quickly as possible before I lose that thought or get dragged away. It's not uncommon for me to have a document open and to be hopping up and down to stir dinner, bark orders at a kid, or to let a dog in or out before running back in to finish a sentence. I often have a list at the bottom of the document that is just a strings of words to remember to address in case I get called away completely. Blogging seems to be the happy medium for a writer like me. No deadlines, no standard word limits, no required commitment. Win, win, win!
And it's a good thing; as I get older, I am beginning to suspect that I have also lived most of my adult life in a state of undiagnosed ADHD. If the idea isn't written down, it's gone forever. If I get stopped mid-essay, it often is left open on the desktop until a forced reboot causes it to be lost in data-space. I've made hypothetical millions off unfulfilled good intentions.
Someday, you might get to purchase my first novel at deep-discount prices. Until then, you can find me here when I feel like it writing what I think is interesting as quickly as I can before someone eats a granola bar.
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