Tag Archives: attitude

Nov23

Day 6: Trader Joe’s, Beautiful Skies, Talent, and Grace

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This thirty day challenge may end up being a one year effort to put fingers to keys! Nevertheless, here’s day 6!

  • Several weeks ago I was subcontracting for a gentleman who had an exceedingly difficult client ; and I’m not being hyberbolic in that description. In fact, I ended up walking out on the job. Left for lunch and didn’t return. Of course, I let the contractor know, and he understood completely. There really are people in the world who expect what feels like superhuman perfection from us. “Sorry, not sorry,” but I’m disinclined to play that game. Life really is too precious to compete with extra human or supernatural forces in order to please people who give so little grace to the Universe.Late in the afternoon of my second day there, I paused for lunch. In my area, there is only one relatively close Trader Joe’s, and we moved further from it when we bought a new house three years ago. Now, it’s a bit of a time luxury to go, but considering this client was giving me a headache with her “hospital corners” exactitude, I was grateful for the close proximity of a store I consider a happy place.

    Why is TJ’s a “happy place,” a respite from a storm? Isn’t is just another grocery store? No, not to this artistic soul. The music is a perfect mix of oldies tunes to which one can easily make a fool of oneself in front of ten other people doing the same. It’s almost like the old “I’m a Pepper! You’re a Pepper” Dr. Pepper ads! The light isn’t overbearing, but “just right;” the store colors and packaging are spot on for an artist- bright and crisp- with beautiful line art. The flowers at the entrance are welcoming, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a grumpy TJ’s employee. So, when an overbearing client is harshing my mellow in the most excruciating of ways, where else would I rather be within a 2 mile radius? Trader Joe’s it is!

  • Beautiful skies, particularly those near sunset, speak to my soul and whisper the lines from Alma 30:44 in the Book of Mormon:  The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator. 

    The majesty of massive cloud formations, the variety of colors filtering through the atmosphere, the miracle of light refraction seen in the manifestation of a multichromatic arc stretching across space- I cannot look at these things and deny the Creator of creation. There must be hundreds of cloud and sunset pictures on my phone from years of stopping to snap scenes that cause my heart to pound and words of gratitude to part my lips,”Thank you! Thank you for creating this just for us.”

   

  • I’ve often pondered the parable of the Talents from Matthew 25. Easily, one could interpret the Lord’s words to refer to finances or spiritual gifts. For my purposes here, I’m going with the latter and considering my artistic talent to be endowment. developing, increasing my talent hasn’t been my forte, though using what I have has been. With that, I’d say I’m like the second man in the parable, the guy who received two coins, then doubled them. He got a small, but adequate start. Image result for parable of the talentsNot so sad as to only get one coin worth of seed money, but not so respected as to get five. Have I doubled my coinage over my life time? No, I’ve still got work to do, but I am a problem solver, and I try to be realistic. As artists go, I’m good. Definitely not great, nor amazing, but in my very small sphere I do well. Figuring out where that sphere is, as it seems to keep bouncing away from me, is part of my problem (also known as ADHD). Nevertheless, there are those days when I finish a project or troubleshoot a situation at work, that a sense of gratitude overwhelms me, and I’m grateful for not burying those coins or giving up when the desire had my knees buckling.
  • Grace. Such a small word, but the whole of the eternities is contained therein. For my purposes, however, I’m not referring to the Grace Christ conferred upon us through his infinite Atonement, but rather the goodwill that we impart to one another when we acknowledge their good faith efforts in light of our own failings and limitations. As a fallible, imperfect human with limited sight, as a mother, a wife, a friend, and particularly as an #tinycontractor, I need Grace in abundant measure; when I’m doing my best, I need my efforts to be recognized, not praised, really, but at least noted…and likewise, I must do the same for others.Life is challenging! As a whole, there is no doubt that statement is true. Good days, bad days, moments in between where it feels all is falling to pieces, which often comes on the heels of all going swimmingly well! La vida est loco! Illness, kids, spouses, zigging when we should have zagged!

    Grace comes in when you pause to consider how your actions Image result for you never know what someone is going through mememight be affecting another- then you stop doing those things. Grace comes in when you’re disappointed with another, then you pause to consider what might be the root of your frustrations, and choose to give that person the benefit of the doubt. Grace comes in when someone is trying their best, but falling short of your expectations, and you take a second or two to reexamine your expectations. Grace comes in when you think of your own bad moments and how you wish others had treated you, then you chose to be kind in stead of pugnacious.

    Solo contracting is one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my 48 years. Success or failure is one one set of shoulders, and those shoulders are small and terribly human. I try to be careful about over promising, but I will admit to being the queen of “magical thinking” (read: I’m late, but no worries! I can drive 28 miles in 5 minutes!). By that I don’t mean I can’t deliver, but realistically, it IS going to take me longer than someone with a team or bigger, faster, sleeker equipment, and I’m likely to charge more because, like the local mom and pop store, I don’t make my profits by volume alone. With that, I’m so grateful when a client chooses me, despite those limitations; I’m even more grateful when they see those limitations and extend Grace when I’m “off” one day, and I need to rework something, or my family needs me, or I get a cold that puts me in bed or slows down my usually spastic self.

    May we all give and receive Grace in equal measure, one to another. Peace out!

 

Oct13

More Gratitude Give Me

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Continuing the theme…

Day #4- Name 2 things for which you are grateful for today

Patient clients and Freedom (both personal & within America)

This is all simple stuff. As a small #tinycontractor with kids still at home, I need patient clients.

Things come up; kids need things; I’m having an off day; I hurry when I should take more time; walls are out of plumb, requiring some problem solving; the air is heavy with moisture, slowing product drying time, clients’ schedules go crazy, and on and on. I just need clients who give grace, who understand that no one, no matter how hard we try are perfect- no matter how good it looks on HGTV, life happens! Gratefully, most of my clients are wonderful and understanding.

Last year, after a particularly trying job, I started penning pleas, if you will, to my clientele. I’ve no idea if the blog posts were read in that light, but in my heart were tears, begging to be heard, one human being to another. One of the first was this: Patience with the Process. Perhaps, next time you hire someone to work in your home, it will make a difference in how you see that contractor.

As for the Freedom part of this day’s brief list, Freedom/ Independence is one of my top 7 core values. Among my Big 3, Freedom battles mightily with Faith/ Spirituality and Wisdom every single day for that important number one spot. Because of that, which I believe has much to do with childhood issues and my struggles with depression over the years, being part of a family can be hard. There are days I long to run away, days on the road when I could simply keep driving, and it has very little to do with my husband or kids, because I value them greatly. No, it has everything to do with my restless soul, which I, not infrequently, have to tell, “Hush. Be still.”

At its worst, the every-day-ness of life can feel suffocating. However, a successful family requires sacrifice and a certain giving over of one’s autonomy; there’s just no other way for things to work well… and that can be terribly difficult when you are a person who needs a fair bit of space and quiet. Despite my artsy, wanderlust side, I am a traditionalist. I don’t believe you simply walk away from good things searching for a “better” that may not exist, a “better” that rarely is. I’ve seen first hand the destruction such thinking can do to children, to spouses, to quality people who deserved to be treated with more love and consideration from those to whom they had made commitments; and I cannot swing such a wrecking ball. That’s a selfishness I cannot…will not… indulge.

So, I bloom where I am planted and am grateful my husband understands this facet of my personality to a large degree, and has been rather generous on this point over the years. I rarely ask for approval, and never for permission, but I try to be conscious of when I’m too withdrawn or overindulging in solitude. It’s the least I can do to demonstrate my appreciation and self-awareness that I’m not in this life alone. John Donne was correct when he penned those famous lines I learned in high school:

 

Oct6

Catching Up on Gratitude: Day 3

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Sometimes Facebook gets these posts before I have time to replicate and expand here. It has been a nutty week, during which I was bitten by a nasty little dog and walked out on a job. Since it has been so long between my last post and my new slew, last I was writing I was a homeschooling chauffeur to my two girls. Well, the oldest went off to university and the youngest ended up in private school. Oh, yeah, I

From my July 14, 2019 Facebook post; made as I was starting my roadtrip to pick up Blondie at college:
Yes, I’m going to bed early, but I brought my oil diffuser & yoga mat for a reason. Seriously, this crap is why I need alone time at least once a year. I get so…self conscious & I just can’t work out or fully relax at home. But stick me in a quiet box 200 miles away, & I’m set.
I have not done child’s pose or whatever this one is (blanking) without major discomfort in 5+ years due to the nerve dead zone & still torn meniscus in my right knee from a car wreck. The nerve area still makes me twitch when too much pressure is placed on it, but maybe it’s the yoga mat on a somewhat cushioned hotel floor vs a hard wood gym surface that made it feel ok this time. Seriously shocked.
Yoga session over. Now for corpse pose. I shouldn’t last long…

noted that in my first post back… What I didn’t mention is that I had to restart my old faux & mural business in order to pay for Brownie’s private school. More about that later though.

Day #3- Name 1 thing for which you are grateful for today (and thus begins a week of ever increasing ‘grateful’ lists)

I made it to yoga class tonight! It has been years since I taught yoga, and honestly, in the past that has been the only way I could actually DO yoga. Teaching gave half my ADHD-riddled brain something to do so the other half could actually be calm and relaxed. Mine and Blondie’s March 2015 car wreck that took out my right knee greatly curtained (almost fully nixed) my yoga, stretching, exercising these last 5 years.

Minus a year in which I tried to enjoy cycling (blech!), but failed, and the 3 months 3 years ago I Krav Maga’d with Brownie (we moved and it got really inconvenient to go), post wreck recovery, my exercise routines went from hour to two hour racewalks and twice a week boot camps, to boring neighborhood strolls where I listened only to podcasts, never to music, because music would make my heart ache and my legs long to sprint. Stretching just to stretch became a rarity, too.

Truly, I really didn’t need the help from the airbag, as I had had surgery on the same meniscus a mere 7 months earlier, and had torn my left hamstring at the origin -for the third time (an annual event since January 2013!)- a week prior. But there you go: another of life’s blindsiding curve balls.

Fast forwarding from the injuries of 2015 to this summer, with 50 birthdays looming and my flexibility diminishing, I determined to get back to yoga, and maybe, eventually, back to teaching. To start on that path, I took my mat with me on my annual summer trip to retrieve Blondie from university and did some work each night in my hotel. Just prior to my departure a new Roll Out yoga studio opened just outside of my neighborhood. I was over joyed…though it took nearly three months for a sufficient break in my schedule to occur, allowing me to sign up for a two-week trial membership.

So far, I’ve been to three classes and, as I just signed up for an “unlimited October,” I’m looking forward to many more. My body is certainly sore, but that’s not unexpected. It feels “right” to be back on the mat, and to find that my body hasn’t lost quite as much as I’d feared. What I’m most pleased with, however, is that I’m more focused compared to the me that used to teach (more on that later)- and I think I’ve found my tribe, as it were, within yoga (not too Zen/ hyper-hippie spiritual, not too anal about their classes, chanting, practice, or music). All of this makes me a happy, still quite bendy, camper!

Sep29

Gratitude Journal Challenge: Day 1

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Well, as I’m looking for things to make me write, to dust off my creaking fingers and cogs, I figure a 30 day gratitude challenge is as good as anything to start me off. Some of these particular may be quick drafts to be fleshed out more in the future, some may get a long form shot out right. Who knows!? So, here goes…

#1: How has an “attitude of gratitude” blessed you in the past?

My life hasn’t been a bed of roses. Though the majority of the “rough stuff” occurred prior to my marriage in 1992, there has been plenty of buffeting about in the past 27 years, too. I don’t believe I could be as functional as I am today without a sense of gratitude.

Sad to say, but not unexpectedly, it took a number of years for the comprehension of my blessings to develop. Yet, once it did, it made understanding my life’s challenges much easier…and it has kept me sane. It can be easy to stew in the anger that often results from loss and disappointment, to muck about in the mire of regrets and “what-ifs.” Yes, it’s very easy, but not productive for oneself or those near by.

As long as we live, we will have trials, things to stretch us- often beyond our sense of comfort. I’ve had a few times I’ve screamed “UNCLE” at God, among other things, but these crisis moments have been short lived.

Several years ago, after my car accident, after my last knee surgery, when I was trying to make a racewalking “comeback,” but everything that could go wrong biomechanically was and I had to stop walking. My mental health was not the best, as it felt like my body was rebelling for no good reason other than to piss me off. Nothing was working. 

It was then that I happened upon a disabled vet who had lost both legs above the knee because of an IED. We chatted for a few minutes about his injuries. He noted that he missed being able to run and play with his kids like before (and here I was whining about not being able to exercise in my preferred manner). It was definitely a sobering moment, a reminder that we just don’t always get what we want, but more often than not we have a helluva lot more than many others. Interestingly, this young vet told me he’d had his own moment at the gym one day, when he ran into a vet missing an arm. “At least I can still play catch with my son,” he observed.

It is during such times that I am grateful for the “smallness” of my struggles. I am still unable to racewalk, but I am little hindered anymore as I scale ladders for work. Yoga doesn’t feel as good as it once did, but I am still more flexible than 95 percent of the population! I still deal with depression, and was recently diagnosed with Hashimoto’s (low thyroid) and I’m barrelling headlong into menopause, but I’m not bi-polar or schizophrenic, my thyroid issue was caught early (I had no idea!), and I can afford bioidentical hormone replacement (though I white hot hate being pelleted in the hip every 3 months!). Even my childhood traumas, and there were a few, including a broken home and sexual abuse, don’t hold a candle to the pitted path upon which so many others walk every day. 

No, I shall take my troubles and simply say ‘thank you’ to God for having the support network, the mental and physical health, the financial resources (for a therapist, and life), and my faith in a better world to come. I don’t want the difficulties others must endure. Mine are quite enough. Perspective truly is everything!

 

Jun29

10,000+ Steps Today, but 2 Steps Back: the Knee Saga, part 50

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About 7:15 p.m. C.S.T., while on a rather plodding one mile walk during my youngest’s evening fencing class, my Fitbit buzzed on my wrist, confirming I had reached my daily goal of ten-thousand steps. It was a glorious feeling! I haven’t felt the buzz of my chameleon-like friend in nearly four months, and I have missed it so. The question from here, however, is how many more ten-thousand step days can I rack upfitbit-colors in the remaining days of summer?

Sigh. I suppose I shall find out soon enough. You see, I had my twelve-week post surgery follow-up today, and while things are better than they were on 9 a.m. on March 18th, April 18th, May 18th, and even June 18th, they are still not back to where they were on March 17, when the “only” orthopedic problem I had was a two cm “high-grade” tear of the proximal hamstring tendon (under my butt cheek) in my left leg (at this point, dear reader, I will refer you back to my post of May 18, “A Day in the Life of My Knee,” for the full-story about my surgery). Due to continued pain at the medial joint line and my inability to walk a mile, let me amend that, “stroll” a mile, without pain three months after surgery, my surgeon has ordered a new MRI on my bum wheel.

Once the results come in, he and I will discuss “the future.” What, oh, what will it be? If a “frank” tear, a screaming, blatant, obvious tear is evident in my meniscus, then we will be looking at another surgery, perhaps in the fall. Dear Surgeon, thinking aloud during our tête à tête today, commented that the question would then be whether to attempt another repair or to debride the tissue, leaving me sans a medial meniscus in my right knee. I quickly assured him I was leaning towards removal. I am so sick of being sidelined, that between waiting an additional quarter plus for the outcome of a second procedure that only has 60/40 odds of healing properly and would require another $#@%^!!!! six weeks on crutches or a removal that would have me walking again within days, my answer is, “Get rid of it.”  I know that undergoing a complete menisectomy is starting the clock on a total knee replacement, but that may be ten years dfrustrated-kit-247x300own the line, not my fourth surgery in two years in three to six months if the repair fails again.

Of course, the idea of waiting until the fall if surgery is indicated, gives me time to get stronger, for my very angry hip muscles to relax, for my gait to improve, for the feeling to come back into my knee (nerve damage sucks!), and for me to be in a better frame of mind. All of those things will make recovering much easier on me (and my family), and I could use a little “easier” right now; I could also use a lot of exercise “release.” When you are someone who needs exercise, who craves the outdoors, but you have to put all of those desires upon the shelf for a season, well, I think I finally know what a castrated tom cat feels like now.

Still, through it all, I have tried to maintain a good perspective, even if I have had pockets of sadness and thrown a few pity parties here and there. A dear friend of mine suffers with MS. Her physical decline started in her early 20s, when her children were very small. She is now in her 70s and has been wheel chair bound for the last decade. Before that she progressed from requiring a cane to a needing a walker. I am blessed.

Earlier this year, combat veteran Noah Galloway was on Dancing with the Stars, a show I never watch. Fortunately though, I caught the video of Noah on Facebook several months back. And I was in tears. I feel like such a complete wuss, whining about a little nerve damage and a torn meniscus. This amazing man is nothing short of a walking miracle, and my pain, or my frustration is nothing.

Indeed, compared to many millions, I am blessed beyond measure. Like us all, I have to remember that I am an eternal soul stuck in a fragile, imperfect, mortal body. I shall run, no, SPRINT, in the eternities, even if on this Earth I have to be content to racewalk. Or even sit on the bench for a while. Since I’m not quite ready to take that final step-off into perfection, I guess I shall await the outcome of my upcoming MRI and continue to bide my time in this telestial sphere. Maybe, just maybe, I can finally get some help for that torn hamstring, too.