It's been a while...

Talk about a serious sabbatical... 

The last couple of years have been crazy... with the whole Covid thing, and having to deal with things like standing in line to get IN to the grocery store, and so much other insanity. I'm glad to finally be getting back to a normal life... 

I finally started a bit of traveling for work again this past year. It's not technically part of my "actual" position at work, but I think they've turned me into a "hybrid" of sorts. I'm labeled as a "Business Analyst" for the Product Team - what is that, even?? But I'm the guru of the existing software, a consultant for our future software, I'm implementing and training a district (which is a different teams job), I participate in demo's with the sales team, I get to be "on stage" in User Group Meetings... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I can definitely say that I'm not given an opportunity to get bored at work. The last few months have seen me in Missouri, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. There will be at least one more Colorado trip coming up soon... and who knows what else will land on my plate. All I can say is, "Bring it! I'm ready!" 

I've also taken some personal trips, and not just work trips... Big Bend, Leavenworth in Washington, the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, a Disney Cruise out of Galveston, the Palo Duro Canyon State Park in North Texas... definitely some enjoyable adventures!

I now have 2 grandchildren... who are just SO much fun! (I could be slightly biased about that, though). I've backed off on my theatre participation to take some time for me, which has been good. I've been able to be a little more spontaneous and spend time with friends and family, and make time to craft and cook again. Maybe I can be better about putting my thoughts down here, too. (Little goals add up...)

I've also been able to get back to working with my planners and designing custom planner pages and stickers again, which I'm definitely enjoying. Of course, keeping track of things in my planner is also keeping track of and taking care of me... which I've learned is important. 

I have a gym membership... and have been going 2 to 3 times a week most weeks... getting there around 6am and working out, showering, and then heading to the office. I have wimped out this week, though - the showers are notoriously cold by the time I get to them, and with temps in the 30's in the mornings - it just does NOT seem like an experience I want to participate in. The weather will be warmer next week, so I'll get off my tail and be better about it.

I've actually had time to watch television again, too - so I'm enjoying things like Young Sheldon, The Goldbergs, Will Trent, Poker Face, Hell's Kitchen, S.W.A.T., Transplant, CSI: Vegas, Ghosts, 1923, The Good Doctor, The Resident, The Challenge... I know, I know... kind of all over the place. Who wants to limit themselves? If you liked Monk - check out Will Trent. It's not as extreme as Monk, but I'm definitely enjoying it. 

I have a blog for work that I've been neglecting, too... I had created it as sort of a "wiki" or "self-help" with troubleshooting tips... it's "resurfaced" after showing it to a couple of co-workers, and I need to start adding to that page, again. My self-imposed to-do list is never-ending. <shrug> Anyone who knows me, is aware that I've always been that way, though. 

It really is time for me to dive into work this morning... so I'll leave off for now, and will add "writing" into my to-do list so that I can be better about spending time catching up... Take care and plan on seeing another update soon! (See what I did there? <grin>)

Incongruity

For over a decade, my favorite place on the planet has been a moment at the top of a turret of a small castle in Germany. From the top of that turret, I was able to look down the side of a mountain overlooking a tiny little town at the bottom. The town was built surrounding a beautiful, regal church… with its glorious steeple standing tall and proud in the center. It was pristine and white with a red roof, and you could hear the sound of the bells in the tower tolling amazingly clear all the way up the mountain. It was absolutely peaceful – a light breeze up there at the top of the turret, with the gentle sound of bells floating in the wind… it’s a moment that I always carry with me.

I’ve found a place that competes as a favorite… for all of the opposite reasons. The tumultuous waves crashing violently into the rocks, and then being sucked out… the only thing gentle is the spray of water as it drifts around me after the initial powerful impact against the bottom of the cliff. It’s almost overwhelming … as though I’m right on the edge of the planet. Standing near the edge of this cliff, closing my eyes and listening to the sound of the waves… it can easily be mistaken for something peaceful. Being here and experiencing this feeling of rest, while knowing there’s such an incredible amount of force in every wave that drives into the rocks, is absolutely amazing. Looking at the cliffs and knowing that the sheer power of those waves has carved out and smoothed all of these crevices, and understanding how many centuries of unrestrained savagery it must have taken to achieve the condition that it’s currently in… It is truly magnificent.

I ponder over the idea that two such incongruous moments can both provoke such an intense feeling of belonging within myself… I think it tells me more about myself than I’ve thought of previously… the ideology of remaining calm and finding peace even when being surrounded with or confronted by chaos. I find it thrilling to jump into the middle of the fray and cause things to settle around me – as though I’m a commanding enough force to incite tranquility with my intervention.  

When one of our customers suggests that there’s a problem, I enjoy the thrill of diving through my knowledge and finding an answer that will smooth things out for them. When I’m involved in a play, and the director has a need, it’s completely gratifying to be able to supply them with whatever it is they’ve asked for. Raising 5 teenagers and being able to keep the peace among them. Working as a midwife’s assistant in previous years… Perhaps it’s simply a mediator inside of me, and not a gladiator… but I’m willing to bet that in either case, the satisfaction of resolution is just as viable to both personalities. 

I want to climb a cliff, the highest I can find

And just jump out, to be free of these binds

It would be just a moment of freedom, that’s sure

But the landing would be the ultimate cure

An end to the haunting, the cage that I’m in

No more fighting of this horrible demon

It sits on my shoulders and whispers so loud

We’re alone together, even when there’s a crowd

It urges, it coaxes, it bribes and it whines

The promises always seem so divine

The end of the suffering, the pain that I feel

The ultimate stop of a nightmare so real

crazy ramblings...

Here I lay in the middle of the night

My eyes wide open though there is no sight

My mind keeps racing while the world is dark

Darting around as though running from sharks

My thoughts often feel as though they’re not mine

Dancing up to and over some line

That I dare not cross or focus on well

Or I’ll end up dreaming in my own little hell

The past is always there, waiting in the wings

Stalking me, scary but so mesmerizing

I want to run, but I’m frozen in fear

Knowing the past is nowhere near

Yet feeling as though it’s so close by

Floating in the darkness, I just want to cry

The life that I’ve entered has become such a trap

There is no escape, and I feel like I’ll snap

I’ve left the frying pan, jumped into the fire

And now I walk daily on such a tight wire

Afraid of falling from a dizzying height

And yet ready to jump, to end this fight

Over a bridge, in the car, from so high

Down to the cement, to crush out this lie

I pretend to be happy, calm and carefree

But there’s such a deep darkness behind the forced glee

The choices and options, decisions I’ve made

This game of life, as it’s meant to be played…

The final square to finish seems so far away

As I crawl painfully through every single day

I want to pick up the wheel and give it a fling

Just toss the board, and quit everything

Yank off the mask and torch the costume

Give in to the chaos, jump into the monsoon

As my mind goes spinning, so out of control

With so many thoughts that it might explode

Summer ramblings....

It's the time of year that I really don't like. It's too hot to do anything outside for any length of time... At 11pm at night, the temps are still hanging out around 90 degrees. It's positively insane.

Another part of not liking this time of year is that we're due to upgrade a couple of the cell phones on our account. I took the girls in to look at phones, made notes of the ones they were interested in, and then googled reviews of those phones. Apparently, having cell phones turn off randomly while in the middle of typing a text message or even talking on the phone is considered a normal issue. It happens on every one of the phones we looked up. It's an issue we've dealt with on other phones, and apparently something we're not going to get away from as long as we own phones that don't have data plans. (We are NOT getting data plans for our teens... No, they're not deprived. If they were, the wouldn't have phones at all.)

This is also the time of year when everyone is getting ready for going back to school. The stores have the back to school sales going on, and we stock up on the few things that we actually have managed to run low or out of since last year. I think the only thing on this years list was the flash drives - Target had the 8gb drives for $9 this week, so I picked up a few of those since we use the heck out of them. I'm wondering if I should pick up a few extra to use as Christmas gifts for some of the teens in the family? I haven't decided yet.

Tomorrow, the girls and I are going to run up to the job fair at the Renaissance Festival and apply to work there this year. Trae worked at it last year and enjoyed it, so I think it might be a good way to supplement Christmas this year. The girls will just be thrilled to be able to put money away. Vicki wants to take drivers Ed, so she'll need to set aside money for that & insurance. Fun! (yikes!)

Jessica graduates from Job Corps this month, so she'll be home looking for a job and learning to drive. She has her learners permit already, but hasn't done any driving yet. I've already determined that my husband will have to be in charge of driving with the learners. I'm not good at it... Seriously. I'm also working on rearranging the house with jessica coming home. Brittani has gotten spoiled and doesn't want to go back to sharing a room. We decided to put Jessica in zacharys room, put zach in the living room, move the living room to the family room, and stop using the family room as a storage room. Holy smokes! I'm in trouble! Lots of stuff to get rid of to achieve this goal. But I WILL get it done. I have to keep my chore-doers happy, or who knows how the dishes or laundry will get done without them :-)

Well, there's really not much else going on around here... Although I am still working on making a decision on our algebra curriculum - and need to get it ordered pretty quick. It's definitely that time!

Droughts & BBQ's - a bad recipe

I know my last post was in regards to the drought that's been going on... and while you generally consider some of the most immediate issues with a drought (i.e. dead lawns, gardens not growing well, hay not growing for feeding the livestock, etc), you don't really entertain ideas regarding wildfires... so it was definitely an eye-opener to have that very situation brought almost literally to my front doorstep.

On Father's Day - an event that is typically a day for family gatherings and BBQ, a gentleman who lives around the corner from us went indoors for a few moments and left his grill unattended. Those few minutes were devastating to a large number of people. While he took the precaution of lighting his grill near his back fence and well away from his house, he didn't take the extra time to douse the ground around his grill... he wasn't present when an ember popped out of the open grill and caught the pine needles layered on the ground on fire... by the time he came outside, it was too late... there was too much for him to be able to put out by himself. The wind kept the fire traveling away from his house, and ultimately, he lost no possessions in the fire. Sadly, there were many people in the vicinity that are not as fortunate as him. 

Thank you to so many of my friends for keeping us in your thoughts through this 5 day fiasco.  We are safe and out of danger thanks to the firefighters, the forest service and the lastly the rain that saved the day.  I lost track of how many departments showed up to help, and I know that there were many individuals from different parts of both Texas and Oklahoma that participated in trying to eliminate the fire. It was absolutely astounding to see so many different entities and individuals join smoothly together in such an enormous undertaking...

 

I was asked to put something together - so here is a quick look at what went on.

 

Although it never got closer than 200 yards to our house, it wouldn’t take long to burn as dry as it was.  The neighbors lost over 2 acres of forest in less than an hour.   Most of the woods are extremely thick, with layers of leaves and pine needles on the ground... lots of kindling and tinder to catch embers and light up easily.

 

Having to pack everything of value in an hour, makes you realize how much excess we have. It was an exercise that we had to participate in when we saw flames lapping at the street that ours meets... 

 

Here is a view from our driveway on Sunday facing the street that the fire started on.  The fire started 600 yards to the right of this frame.

Aftermath of a flare up that happened on Monday afternoon, it almost made it to the street, this is when we started to pack to evacuate.

Monday afternoon a neighbor and my husband took their front end loaders out and cleared some paths to hopefully slow or stop the ground fire from spreading toward our houses.  They cleared 2 miles of brush but as you can see the trees are so close together it could still spread if it got hot enough. 

 

Flare up on Tuesday afternoon as the winds changed from South to Northwest to a West to East direction and then back East to West.  The winds were gusting 15-20 mph.  This is when the helicopters really started to fly overhead and dropping water.

 

I took a video of the helicopters that were dropping the water after the Tuesday flare up.  This was a new helicopter that was picking up a bag to join in the firefighting.  I uploaded it to the KBTX live blog that was set up for covering the details in a live setting (dedicated to the fire and its victims to monitor the activity), and it was picked up and used on the KBTX news out of Brian/College Station.  At one point we had 4 helicopters dropping water constantly on our area for 4 hours.  

http://www.facebook.com/v/1899084035061

 

May showers?

That nursery rhyme is definitely wrong this year... we've had no April showers, and it's a dust bowl out there with no flowers in sight. The roads are so dusty out here, and the heat is already up in the 90's. It's going to be a very loooong summer if this continues.

Trae and Jess are coming home for Memorial Day weekend. I'll pick them up on Friday afternoon, and return them on Tuesday. They'll have their official summer break from June 30th to July 18th, and I know they're both looking forward to that. Trae did say the food "miraculously" improved at Job Corps, so I don't know if they've got a new cook in charge of the kitchen? He definitely sounded like a happy camper about it, though. (I do know he had Pizza one night last week, though... I don't think the two of them realize that I really do follow their facebook pages )

Things are as crazy as usual at our house... this past weekend we spent Saturday with some friends down in League City, and then Sunday after church we helped clear out someone's barn... which means it was an afternoon spent outdoors in the heat . Monday I ran errands - Harbor Freight, Office Depot, Lowe's, and HEB for groceries. Today I'll pop into PetsMart, get Vicki's hair cut, maybe pop into the Container Store for ideas for Brittani's room, half-price frappuccino at Starbucks, then meet up with Andrew for his eye appointment, have dinner with him, and then head towards the airport to wait for Ruth's flight to come in.

I'm working on getting a box packed up to send to Trae & Jessica. I picked up a few surprises for them, and have some other things that they requested packed into it. The plan is to get it out in the mail tomorrow morning for them, but we'll see if I get it finished before I have to leave for the dentist office tomorrow.

It's getting near time for me to dash... hope everyone has a fabulous afternoon!