We all float down here

Ms Misandrist

2012-02-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

Maybe I was a queen bee, praying mantis, or a black widowspider in a former life. I’m notaltogether sure I believe in reincarnation, but if I do and I did reincarnatefrom a former life, I’m quite certain I was something that had no regard formales. It’s not really that I’m aman-hater as much as it seems like everyone who has pissed me off lately ismale. OK, at the moment…I am aman-hater.

Ex-boss à you are an ass, nothing but...but I'm sure that's not news.

Chairman àWTF am I paying you for? Batter up,buddy! Are you waiting for a written invitation? Oh wait!!! I already gave you one.

Someone àit’s really not rocket science, and I told you when you bought it I wouldn’thave time to set it up for you until my proposal was submitted. With less than 12 hours sleep in the last 120hours, it’s really not a good time to be nagging me to accommodate your TVaddiction.

So listen up, world! If you are male, please stay the hell away from me right now. I’m tired and cranky, and if I had a flamethrower in my claws, you’d be toast.

Eternity is a long time

2012-02-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

These damn-near all-nighters are killing me. Just when I think I’m seeing light at the endof the tunnel, more problems surface. Ithought I’d be done with my proposal soon. Oh hell no. Lots of thesubmission forms involve details that have to be worked out before I can finishChapter 3. Then around midnight lastnight, I learn that the one commercial instrument I’m using requires eachrespondent to have a unique login and password…as if that’s going to keeppeople from stealing intellectual property if they have a mind to do that. Basically what that means is participationwill be a 2-step process. That will be ahuge deterrent; it would deter me.

You gotta be kidding me!

Someone has totally spoiled Gracie and now we’re both payingthe price. She sleeps in the kitchen atnight (she is gated in) and barks in the morning when she wants out. No way in hell am I going outside with her inthe wee hours of the morning ; she knows that. When I go down to put her out, she lays back down and gets quiet. I open the door and call her – she won’t goout. If I drag her outside, sheimmediately starts barking to be let back in. Someone has to get up, get dressed, and accompany her outside. He started doing this when she was a puppybecause the mornings were light and pleasant. Now that it’s cold and dark, he wants to sleep.

I went to bed at 2:30 this morning and Someone was still upwatching Gunsmoke reruns. Crazy man. Icrawled into bed and was asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. The next thing I know (like 5:00 AM) Graciestarts barking. Shit! I punched someone to get up and he pretendedto be dead. I tried to sleep through thebarking and whining. I no more thandrifted back to sleep when Gracie leapt up on our bed, thrashed about lickingall over our faces, and digging at the covers. This delightedSomeone, and he greeted her, praised her, and popped right up to dress and gooutside with her. She had jumped thegate - those gates are worthless now.

Diablo blanco

Artificial Light

2012-02-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think the electric lightbulb started thedownfall of mankind. Artificial light isour nemesis.

Girls run through the house all the time, all hours, flippingon lights, leaving them on needlessly – how many times do you have to remindthem – electricity costs money!

The kitchen floor was appalling this evening. From my desk I can view the kitchen sink andstove area. My head was in Chapter 3when it wasn’t in all sorts of hell and delight sprinkled in throughout the day,today.

Chapter 3 is challenging for me. In the past few days, I’ve been reading intensivelyabout research method and design, probabability/nonprobabilitysampling, causal comparative designs, sampling error, et al., ad nauseaum. It’s coming along well. I got a “Great Job” from my chairman. Very pleased about that, I am. First two chapters are solid. It’s time to update my committee and set acommitment on a Chapter 3 deliverable. A launch date is needed!

So, I leapt up from my ~~Throne of Knowledge~~ desk chair, grabbed a broom and dustpan, and swept the hell out of that kitchenfloor. It’s clean until the next girl-troopstromp through, or Gracie goes out and in again. Gracie is becoming a very good dog.

So The Very Sweet and Talented Erin doodled an interesting cartoon. The caption read, “This is why Twilight is flawed.” I didn’t see or read Twilight, but it seemsto be about a female who loves creatures who wish to harm her. You can click on the image to make it larger. I love it. The werewolf reminds me of Gracie.

Awkward

2012-01-31T20:06:00.000-08:00

I was a terribly geeky teenager – as geeky as theycome. No social skills whatsoever, few friends, no sense of personal style – you getthe picture. I tried my best to dressand look like everyone else around me, blending in (being invisible) as best asI could…it was hard.

I was in the high school band. In those days, being in band was somethingpopular kids did. I joined band becauseI liked music. Teens these days areshocked to even imagine band kids could ever be popular. Anyway, during marching season, we were bussedto the football stadium across town to practice half time shows for the lasttwo periods of every day. During concertseason, we had band 7th period of the day and students were excused 8th periodand could go home.

Across the street from our school was the city’s publiclibrary. Usually, my girlfriend, also inband, and I went to the library for 8th period and did homework while we waitedfor her dad to pick us up when he got off work. The library was oftentimes used by students who attended the communitycollege. One day, there was a collegestudent/ man who was ever so dreamy sitting at a table across the room fromus. He was working hard and rarelylooked up. My imagination ran wild. He was definitely my type – long blond hairdown on his shoulders, and a beard and mustache. Very, very, very cute. I was around 16, with virtually no experiencewith boys. My girlfriend saw me staringat him and commented that he was gorgeous (not in those words) but to forgetabout him because he was way out of our league. Of course, I knew that but I liked watching him work. He was perfect in every way.

This mystery man started showing up on a regular basis. We always sat at the same table and when wewalked in, sometimes he was sitting closer to our table. Weeks went by. Pretty girls flirted with him and sat down to visit with him. I lost allhope.

One afternoon, we arrived at the library and there he was,sitting at the table not far from ours. I tossed my books on the table and went to the restroom. Coming back, I stopped in the stacks tobrowse. My girlfriend came back to findme, “What the hell are you doing? Heasked about you. He wanted to know yourname and if you’re dating someone. Ithink he’s going to ask you out. Getback out here!” Paralysis. My brain went numb as my friend went back outto our table. I dashed back into therestroom to check my hair and face…as if it even mattered at that point. Freaking out totally, a million worriesrunning through my mind – I (hideous geek) might have to talk to the magnificent guy. He might say something to me. He might figure out what a total nerdy geekyfreak I am and regret speaking to me. Etc. etc.

Adrenaline high and rubber legs, I hid and spied on theperfectly-beautiful goldilocks bearded Adonis boy/man for a few minutes. Courage. I sauntered out from the stacks trying to act like I didn’t have a clueanything was up. I purposely looked inthe opposite direction, away from Mr. Beautiful, as if I forgot he was there. I have no idea what happened exactly, butsomehow I tripped over my feet and fell flat. KERTHUD - right in the middle of the library floor. It didn’t hurt me but you can’t begin toimagine my embarrassment. I jumped up,face flaming red, silent mental meltdown. The librarian came running out from behind her desk, “OH MY GOD! ARE YOU OK????” Thanks for announcing to the world, lady,“yes. I’m fine,” I muttered. I died a thousand deaths in those moments, walkedover to the table, and sat with my back to Mr. No-chance-now.

My friend shook her head and hissed, “You’re reallyunbelievable. You’re never going to geta husband.” I knew it already and didn’tneed to hear it from her. But if you canbelieve in miracles, Mr. Beautiful waited 15 minutes or so and came over to ourtable. He introduced himself, we talkeda few minutes, and he asked for my phone number. We dated for eight months or so until he transferredto a university and moved out of town. He was a good friend, and it all ended well. I have no idea where in the world he is, butI hope his life is good.

asleep at the wheel

2012-01-28T20:54:00.000-08:00

It was a busy day until I crashed for a wee (3.5 hour) nap this afternoon. Don’t you hate when that happens! It's one thing to catnap at the keyboard - a 10-15 minute time-lapse of lost productivity. What happened today was a total mind-slip nap. I wandered into the living room and was lured by a blanket piled on the couch. "Come to me," it said. I obeyed. My grandiose plans for completing the Chapter 1 rewrite vaporized with the perpetual passage of time.

Baby Jack Damien

We are done with the renovations to our house. Now it’s a matter of trying to maintain a decent level of cleanliness while restoring some semblance of order…while rewriting Chapter 1 and working a full time job. Writing that sentence just made me want a big slug of caffeine.

The improvements to our house are wonderful, but now I see more work that should be done. Perhaps if we just get rid of more junk…well, do that then decide what’s next.

Today was a day of intense research, among other special events. Tomorrow, I’m ready to write. Attack at dawn!

On the road

2012-01-26T18:58:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I’m alone in a nice motel room in a small town in northwestern Ohio. There’s a big meeting here tomorrow morning that I have to attend. It’s not a bad gig, but a bit inconvenient for Someone when I have to go out of town. He is left to deal with the kids. Now that they’re older, it’s not too bad. They can fend for themselves when it comes to food and laundry. They are also pretty reliable about getting ready for school on time. Pretty much, Someone only has to keep peace and battle any invading wildlife, such as spiders or moths. Erin flips out when she sees a spider and Emily freaks at any bugs that fly. I have no idea why my girls are so phobic about these little critters.

Do they bite?

I kind of like having a nice motel room all to myself. I control which bed to sleep in (two queen beds in corporate-rate rooms here), and which side of the bed I want to sleep on. I own the TV remote. It’s an awesome power, and best of all, I can set the temperature to 85 if I want to with no cares about the electric bill. The car rental company brought me an ugly green minivan – a Dodge Caravan, no less. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as the jeep I rented once, and it has satellite radio which I LOVE. If I had tons of money, I’d subscribe to satellite radio. The neatest feature of all about the Caravan is that it has a camera that displays what is behind you when the van is in reverse. That is a great feature. I wish my Odyssey had it.

My chairman finally gave me feedback on Chapter 2. He says he marked the changes and it looks great – yeah, he changed a three-word phrase in the first paragraph and there’s nothing else marked. Am I really that good? I know better – the chapter is 45 pages long. I doubt he read past the first paragraph. I sent it to the committee member who has been most helpful. I believe she will read it and bleed all over it…which is a good thing because then I’ll know how to improve it. My committee lady says she needs 7 days. Very reasonable.

So, I guess I’d better review some stuff for the meeting in the morning. The night is getting away from me and there’re some design specs and workflow I’m supposed to talk intelligently about.

greenlight

2012-01-19T21:26:00.000-08:00

I was drafting an email to my academic advisor to ask the procedure for replacing my chairman. I had given up all hope. Tonight, my chairman redeemed himself. He even suggested I should text him if I have questions and I know how to text. Know how to text? Does he think I’m a dinosaur? He probably does; I’m at least 20 years older than him.

The best news! He approves of the instrument to measure safety voice. No longer will I be looking at intentions to report near miss incidents. No instrument exists and I have no time for developing an instrument. Safety voice is conceptualized as including such things as speaking up when things are unsafe, reporting hazards, ratting out coworkers who violate safety procedures, and other such things. Safety voice includes reporting near misses although the researchers who termed it did not specifically mention near misses. By most definitions, near misses include not only no-harm incidents but also identification of hazardous conditions or unsafe actions.

So anyway, I’m busy on a new section for Chapter 2, and I’ll have to go back through Chapters 1 and 3 to restate research questions and hypotheses. Fun, fun, and more fun. I don’t care. It’s progress and there hasn’t been enough of that lately!!!

I'm the moss

2012-01-18T16:43:00.000-08:00

If you read my blog at all, you might have noticed that things have been kind of bad lately. It’s me not dealing with stuff going on. I can only put myself out for so long, then I have to crawl back and have some time to recoup. I’m not the person I have to pretend to be – the expectation of somebody who is a go-getter, articulate, master of all things, drive for results, etc. I’m really a silent jelly sloth. It takes a lot of energy to be a rose bush, all thorny and vibrant, when really you are a bit of moss under the rocks.

So I sat through a meeting today, invited as a subject matter expert (SME). I was asked to give opinions on various crap. I articulated as expected, used the right technical words as expected, the correct tone of authority as expected. Inside, I’m thinking what the hell is he talking about? How the hell should I know that? What WILL we do about that issue? Is this for real? Some great SME I am. With the meeting over, whew! I felt like I was just pressed through the wringer of an old fashioned washing machine.

My great grandmother actually had an old fashioned washing machine with a wringer. It was sort of a giant white rusted tub on legs with wheels. My great aunts and grandmother did laundry on the back porch and let the used water empty through the hose out into the yard and into the garden where it made a muddy mess. They filled the tub with water from the cistern using buckets. It really didn’t take much water to do laundry, but they did small loads in comparison to the super capacity washing machine I have now. My job was to take the washed clothes and hang them up on the clothesline outside to dry, and also take them down when they were dry. I hung dark colors in the shade and light colors in the sun, and was given explicit instructions about clothes pin placement on various items. God forbid I should get it wrong. They didn’t use fabric softener and the clothes always seemed stiff when they were dry. In the wintertime, they took dirty clothes to the laundry mat in Vanceburg for washing. Good old days? Nope. Modern conveniences are wonderful.

trying to be civil

2012-01-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

I’ve started another 8-week session with my chairman today…honestly hoping my proposal is submitted by the end of the month. That’s my plan. He asked how it was going. It? Oh, you mean that little thing you’re supposed to be helping me with? GRRRRRR…ok, after much gnashing my teeth and growling, I came up with a 3-paragraph reply that asked three questions and suggested if he would review what I sent him more than a month ago and give me some form of feedback, I’d be most appreciative.

I moved into my new workspace. I couldn’t situate things the way I wanted them because my part of the room just isn’t big enough. Still, it’s so much nicer than before. I took this photo and HORRORS!!! One of my girls had just been in to nag me about something and sat in that spare chair for a bit...and look at the photo – she violated my space! She left her brochure on my desk and her bag of popcorn on my printer! NEVERMORE!! Fair warning to all who live in this house!!! I ordered a bookshelf which should be arriving by the end of the week. Then I’ll have a place to keep books and stuff. I’m also still considering a floor lamp – the overhead lighting is not very pleasant. A big area rug would be divine!

I stopped wearing the bandage over my lip this week. It looks a bit scary, but I don’t care so much anymore. It’s not like I was ever all that beautiful. If I were gorgeous to begin with, I’d be upset about this new flaw. I always had a scar on my lip anyway – now it’s just a whole lot bigger. The doctor said it will continue to heal and improve for about 4 more weeks. We’ll see.

Work is nuts. Really nuts. I want to finish this dissertation and get out of that place - the sooner the better.

imitation

2012-01-14T16:43:00.000-08:00

In a post a while ago, I wrote about watching my mother put on her make-up and how I thought she was beautiful. I wanted to grow up, be sophisticated, wear high heels and make-up, and look elegant all the time (the way I judged her to look). As it turned out, when I started my career and for about the first 20 years of it, I was expected to wear suits or dresses, panty-hose, and heels to work every day. I hated having to dress up, and the first thing I did when I got home from work was change into jeans and comfy shoes.

I remember once when Sarah was little, maybe three years old, she was sitting on my bed and watching me get ready for a date. A friend had invited me to a party at a country club – a very fancy party so I wanted to look nice. Sarah sat and watched, talking non-stop as I put make-up on, painted my nails, and curled my hair. She asked, “Don’t you think you’ll be the most beautiful lady there?” Do you suppose all young children think their mothers are pretty? I assured her that I wanted to look OK in comparison to the other ladies. I stood to walk out of the room and Sarah stated loudly, “Oh poor Mommy, you teared your pretty dress!” OH NO! I turned and looked in the mirror, and only saw the short slit in the skirt back of my dress (it was supposed to be there). I explained to her that it was a design feature called a slit or a pleat that makes a dress easier to sit and climb steps in. Sarah said that the next time she got a new dress, she wanted one with a “slut” in the back. It made me smile.

Isn't she lovely?

breaking point

2012-01-11T18:36:00.000-08:00

I haven’t been in the mood to write lately. Things pile up until it all becomes an incredible weight. Living gives way to “making it through another day”. It makes me wish I could stage my death and disappear, or be abducted by space aliens who will take me away to a peaceful, idyllic galaxy far from here. Has life ever been simple? I don’t remember my life ever being simple, but I do remember a time when it was easier than it is now.

What makes life complicated? I think it’s people. People are always doing shit to each other that makes life complicated….I do shit that makes my own life complicated. Maybe the real problem is me. Maybe a good long vacation away from me and this planet would do a world of good. I bet everyone is that way, or perhaps it’s just people on the lower end of the food chain (like me) who look for escape from it all. God should have thought of that when he designed people. Maybe that’s why He invented alcohol…or maybe people invented alcohol to overcome God’s design flaw.

So, work has been nuts lately. I did somebody a favor today - it was very easy for me and what I did at least gives him a fighting chance for success. He’s been struggling with a project that has no stakeholder support, and inadequate leader support. He’s into the third year with it and still has no agreement among stakeholders about what to do. He’s been asking the wrong people for help (but he didn’t know that). He called me today and we chatted about what he thinks is causing delays in getting buy-in. I listened – he is lost in the jungle and standing in quick sand. I threw him a rope and volunteered to be his Sherpa. Maybe today I just doubled my workload for the next year….if I’m there another year.

They say what goes around, comes around. Could somebody please throw me a rope and a compass?

cast a net

2012-01-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

I cast a net a few days ago, hoping to pull in some help. I’ve not found help but some amazing things happened this week. I stirred up a conversation on a listserv that like ten different safety professionals from around the GLOBE chimed in on. I talked to two government agency researchers on the phone. It’s kind of awesome to talk to people who know what I’m talking about!

It’s time to demand a phone conversation with my chairman. We’ve never spoken – it’s been two years and he’s like the Great and Powerful OZ – steam and fire behind the sheet!

It's going to be an interesting weekend. Tomorrow - a day of interior painting, research, and taking down and putting away Christmas decorations.

Yes, DANG IT!! Research and not writing Chapter 3. A major snag....it could be a deal breaker too. I'm about to give my topic a new twist. I fear the present path is dead end. Oh really, AGAIN???

sililoquey

2012-01-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

The clock is ticking.

The hour glass is getting bottom-heavy.

So am I.

Failure on the horizon,

laughing at this wretchedly poor excuse.

If I refuse to see the inevitable

will it go away?

Happy New year

2011-12-31T22:48:00.000-08:00

Today was sort of a different day. This afternoon, I’ve been really looking hard at Chapter 2. The draft is complete. Dr. Chairman has not reviewed any of my pre-drafts – if he did, he has not made a single comment about any of them. The first section was a disorganized wreck. I added some accident severity ratio theory since this is important to my study; in fact, it’s really the rationale and foundation of my study. After that was in, I’ve started adding the subheadings to the chapter. I like to write and organize this way. It seems to flow better…but that’s exactly what I’m doing now – making it flow better. The second section. Good…easily divided into three subs. Third section – in progress. I like what I’ve redone so far. It’s much better.

I changed the top of my blog to a winter photo. I hate it. I don’t want the cold but it’s coming. So happy new year to the world. If it could be a happy year for everyone in the world, that would be the best ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xB4dbdNSXY

Apologies all around

2011-12-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

OK, I apologize for my recent postings. I’ve been very condescending to my chairman. Truly, I am grateful for every gem and tidbit of wisdom I can glean from anyone, especially him. No more imagining my good chairman as a small burro-like mammal or arthropod.

I got my laptop back from HP. Hooray!!!!! It feels like Christmas all over again. All I wanted for Christmas was my laptop back….but no, that’s not really true.

She wished for a horse

Getting late! Back to work.

Grinch's heart grew

2011-12-29T15:01:00.000-08:00

In my previous post, it seemed as though the world had forsaken me. My academic advisor checked in to see if I had submitted and where I stood with things. I told her about my lack of progress and she insists I must get submitted ASAP. She asked me why I wasn’t using the dissertation helpline and I told her I was not aware there was one. She said my chairman was supposed to tell me about it, to which I repeated for at least the 50th time, my chairman doesn’t tell me anything I don’t specifically ask about. Within an hour of hanging up with her, I got a nice reply from my last email to my chairman. I will now refer to him as Dr. Cockroach. He gave me the information I requested so he’s no longer a Grinch. It could be my advisor ripped him a new one, or it could just be coincidental (but I doubt it).

Chairman Cockroach

Also, after I slammed HP in the last post, I got good news about my poor laptop. It’s on its way to me with a new motherboard, a new battery, and a new power cable. I’m pretty hopeful this means my hard drive is unharmed. It was on the truck in Nashville this morning and should be delivered to my house TOMORROW!!

I tracked my dreary textbook about psychometric theory from South Carolina to Hebron, Kentucky (a little less than three hours from here), and it was transferred into the hands of the US Postal Service. Dear God, I may never see it! The post office delivers the wrong mail to us all the time. They must deliver our mail to the wrong addresses sometimes too. Hopefully it was handed off as a priority package, but the web site doesn’t say. Perhaps it was taped to the backs of a battalion of snails. In the meantime, I’m still waiting for Dr. Kaplan to get off break, Chapter 3 is underway, I’m making corrections and edits to Chapter 2, I have to take recertification training on the appropriate ways to deal with human subjects in research, and I’ll research Dr. Cockroach’s instrument assessments.

dungbeetle droppings

2011-12-28T15:06:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I drag my lazy ass into this office, plop down, and say to myself, “I can’t do this another day.” It’s one of those days. It started out with one of those nights. I sent Dr. Kaplan an email requesting permission to use and modify the questions from his study. He is a college professor sort, so of course he is out on break until next week….perhaps longer. I’m floundering with getting my proposal done. Nobody is going to help me and I’m going fail (says the pessimist in me). The 500+ page textbook that I am supposed to read and figure out how to adapt a survey was shipped Dec. 20, I still don’t have it and the seller didn’t send me a tracking number. At some point (soon), I’ll have to call and demand a tracking number. I have a feeling the book will be Greek to me. It’s hard not to be pessimistic when grim reality is so blatantly in my face all the time.

HP is F’ing me. My service agreement says 2-day shipping to get my laptop to them, 2-day shipping return. They have 3 days to make a repair or replace the thing. They tell you that you’ll be without your laptop for a week if anything happens. Are you kidding? What it REALLY means is they have 2 days to send me an empty box. I pack and return the box and it should arrive to them in 2 days. I returned the laptop the same day it arrived at my door. They just got it yesterday; thanks to Fed-Ex and the holiday, it took 8 days. The estimated return date on my order is now January 5th. So in reality – I am without my laptop 18 days!

I got all bummed out last night, gave up early, and went to bed. Someone was watching the football game and munching chips and dip in bed, and slurping down Big Red. Someone can eat like that because he’s an exercise addict. I set the alarm and tossed and turned for 30 minutes or so – normally I’m asleep when my head touches a pillow. Sometime in the night, I woke up with blood in my mouth and all over the pillow. Geeze Louise!! I have no idea what happened. The bandage was still intact so I must have bumped my wound somehow. It looks no different this morning but now it’s sore as heck. I’m going to be 70 years old and still have this giant bandage on my mouth. Hmmm…maybe I should just put a giant bandage over my whole mouth then nobody would expect me to eat or talk ever again. There’s always a silver lining when we look for one. Perhaps I could defend my dissertation in sign language, assuming I finish it before I’m so old that my brain changes to pudding.

Happy holiday

2011-12-26T19:24:00.000-08:00

The holiday is over and it’s back to work for me tomorrow. You could say I knocked off early tonight. Quite obviously I’ve sunk into a very deep pit of psychometric mud. I have no clear concept of what the hell I’m supposed to be looking for. Asking an extra three little questions has me totally confounded. Surely to God I’m making this much harder than it needs to be! Dr. Cockroach is not handing out any tidbits of wisdom lately. Perhaps I will call him Cockroach Grinch until his behavior improves.

We had a delightful holiday. Visits from my sweet daughter and her man, and my sweet step-daughter too. Time with Gracie. She really is like a terrible-two year old human. If I stay on her case and keep no-nonsense control of her, she behaves pretty well. I think she has improved today, but it’s the kids and work crew here tomorrow, no doubt she will regress.

Our Gracie

I took my nervous, newly 16-year olds driving for the first time today. Over to the high school we went to drive around the parking lot…around, around, around for like an hour. I sipped a mug of warm tea through a straw and tried to remain calm (my wound is maybe somewhat better today). There was once I thought Emily was going to run us into a tower of wood pallets, and once when it seemed like we might take down a sign...but the car remained unscathed.

Our work crew was back today and gutted the main bathroom upstairs. It was an awesome feat for two men - all day! We got good news - the water damage to the floor was limited to the plywood that overlaid the subfloor. The underlying structure is still solid. Here is our gutted upstairs bathroom:

Sink side

Tub side

celing is insulated - no floor in the attic above

This is our new lovely half bath on the first floor. I have to go buy cabinet knobs and a towel bar. Also some shelf liner for the drawers. With messy people in the house, I like to protect our wood inside the drawers and on shelves.

First floor half bath - needs some decorating.

Here's a photo of our new deck (as promised). It's a bit larger than the old deck. We like it.

Our screened porch rescreened, very nice! Can you say, "office outside"?

our lovely new floor

Erin put up and decorated our little tree. It's really not a little tree. Erin asked me what was wrong with it after she put it together, and I failed to notice it's short stature. After she had it all decorated like this, I realized she left off the whole bottom layer. I told her it was perfect. Really, it was wonderful to have her do this for us. It's a lot of work to carry all that stuff upstairs.

So well, that's it folks. It's time for me to go redo this bandage on my face. Then, I'm going to play piano a bit before calling it a night. I hope anyone who reads this blog has had a nice holiday. I had a nice one despite my face, the inconvenience of construction, and Dr. C. Grinch.

whining

2011-12-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

It’s almost Christmas and I’m in a wretched mood. My laptop crapped out in the wee hours Sunday morning. I knew it was bad (power issue came back), so I thought just maybe I’d go to bed and when I woke up, the problem would be gone. Yeah, but no. A few hours on the phone with HP and at least the damn thing is still under warranty. So, they are shipping me a box to return it in. Nevermind that I kept the original box it came in and could have overnighted it to them Monday. They insisted if I violate their standard process, it could actually take longer to get it back. I’m supposed to receive the magic box tomorrow with “special” paperwork. Thank you God for Carbonite. I didn’t lose any work (that I’m aware of).

My face. Totally bummed. Did I say I didn’t care about disfigurement? I lied. Needles and blood, plenty of that. We started at 9 AM and finished at 4:30 PM. We went three rounds of numbing, cutting, and checking until all the cancer was out (it's called Moh's surgery). I went back into the little room of horrors for the 4^th time and was told good news – they got it all. Bad news, we can’t really do a repair job now because we don’t know how this mess is going to heal. We can: A) skin graft but it’ll need plastic surgery later; B) cut a big notch up to my nose and sew the skin together but then I’ll likely have something weird on my lip that needs plastic surgery; or C) leave a big gaping hole and let it heal naturally…then see if plastic surgery is needed. I told him C sounded like the best option and he agreed. So, I have a hole about the size of a nickel on and above my lip. I have to change the bandage 3 times a day and when I got a good look at that mess last night, I wasn’t sure if I was going to black out or puke. Obviously I was not cut out to be in the medical profession.

What else? Should I bitch about my chairman? I finished all the courses in my doctoral program and I must have been short-changed. I didn’t get the course on being an asshole. The man (when he bothers to answer at all) answers my questions with questions. Why can’t he just give me a straight answer – like ever????? The only reason he replied to my email was because I told him if he didn’t reply within 48 hours, I was going to call him! God forbid he should have to actually speak to me. I’ve talked to a couple of others in my cohort who have assholes for chairmen/women. Maybe it’s a requirement to qualify as a dissertation chair-person that you must be a disinterested jerk.

Well, that’s pretty much all the negativity I can spread for now. Back to work... I don't even think I could drink with this damn hole - maybe with a straw...but I can't imagine getting alcohol in it. It makes me cringe to think about it. :( OK...now back to work.

discovery discourse

2011-12-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

July, 2008 is when my doctoral journey began. In my first residency, the professors kept referring to “the program” as a journey. The doctoral journey and dissertation mountain had little meaning to me then, but they do now. The first leg of my journey is over (i.e. classes are finished) and I’m now very slowly trudging up the mountain. Looking back, I recognize I’m a different person now.

One of the most dramatic changes in me resulted from the requirement to submit a reflection statement at the end of every week of every class throughout the entire program. The statement was personal and not graded. The assignment required the student to state something of significance that he learned from the discussions that week, discuss why it was important, and describe how he could apply the information to his personal or professional life. The minimum required length was 100 words. You can’t imagine how difficult these reflection assignments were for me at the beginning of the program! It took me hours to write a short paragraph that I thought was not an embarrassment to post.

Why was that? I’ve always lived life like I was in a car, speeding down the highway with no rear-view mirror or windows except for the front windshield. My approach to education was the same. I focused on collecting information that may or may not be useful with the assumption that all assigned content was relevant. Writing reflection statements forced me to be discriminating, to really consider importance and implications of the information. Metaphorically, I learned that my car has mirrors and more than one window. As a result, I’ve started paying more attention to everything going on in the world, and to my own experiences too. I've become much more reflective in my personal life.

The implication of all that I’ve said here is that I’m realizing why my life has always seemed so meaningless. I’ve lived life without assigning meaning to any of it - reality is what it is and nothing more. WYSIWYG! Once things passed from view of the front windshield, they were gone and forgotten.

I used to think that people who had meaningful lives had something I was born without and couldn’t have. I’ve learned that I can’t live passively and wait for meaning to present itself. People find meaning through the way they interpret their experiences and by embracing their circumstances and the things they value. If I don’t look for meaning, I’ll never find it.

counterfactual thinking

2011-12-09T17:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve been giving lots of thought to unusual things today. A person told me about a tragedy that unraveled his life – his 23- year-old daughter died from a drug overdose. He didn’t know she was using drugs at all so it was quite a shock. I didn’t ask a lot of questions because I don’t know him all that well, but I got the impression he was with her when she died. It happened more than a year ago and he is still grieving for her.

For some reason, since he told me this story, I’ve been thinking about a lady who attended doctoral residencies with me. This last time we were together, she told me about her son. When he was 8 years old, he was hit by a car while crossing the street with his older brother. He was in a coma for a month, and survived to be severely disabled. They have other children and went bankrupt trying to care for him at home. They ended up putting him in a facility where he has been for more than 15 years. His quality of life is extremely poor, and she says he shows no awareness when they visit. With tears in her eyes, she told me that when he was in a coma, they prayed for the wrong outcome (that he would live).

Do you suppose it’s selfish to pray for an outcome? Is it arrogance that makes us think God is in control and we can persuade Him to make things go the way we want them to? Maybe the truth is that everything is random and nobody, not even God, has any control over anything.

The weekend is nearly here. More work ahead for me to FINALLY finish a draft of Chapter 2 and start Chapter 3. I have industrial program directors from three technical colleges lined up who said they will send my survey links to their employed students and alumni, with no guarantee that alumni emails are still current. Sounds good enough to me…I hope (pray?) it’s good enough for my chairman and committee. My girls promised to do some decorating for Christmas this weekend. We look like the Scrooge residence in our neighborhood right now. I also better get out there on the Internet and get Christmas shopping done too. The Season will be come and gone in a flash!

Home, Sweet Home

scatterbrain

2011-12-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a glorious day. I met with the director of the local technical college and he offered to distribute a link to my survey to his alumni and current students who have jobs in industry now. HALLELUJAH!! Not only that, he gave me contact info for a couple of his counterpart pals at other technical colleges, AND he told me about a professional organization that promotes excellence in technical training. Perhaps I can join and get them to distribute a link to my survey.

So, I should be on at least cloud 7 if not 9, but I’m not. The dermatologist’s office called with bad news. It’s cancer on my face so more needles and knives are in my future. Lots more…in two weeks. I don’t even want to think about it. Merry F’ing Christmas to me.

Also, I bought new furniture and it was delivered today…only the item I cared most about – my new very own desk – was broken when they pulled it off the truck. They had to take it back and then they pissed me off. It’s up to me to call and reorder and no doubt it’ll be on backorder again. I’m seriously thinking about getting something different from some other place. I bought a chest of drawers (the other item). They pulled it off the truck, unboxed it, and then assembled in my driveway in the rain. I wasn’t too happy to have my new chest of drawers getting washed off in that way. They brought it in, carried it upstairs, and off they went. I wiped it down with a towel. I know they had no control of the weather, but it seems they should plan for it somehow. They could have assembled it in the truck – there was room. They also could have assembled it in our foyer. I’m pretty sure they have lost my business forever….and I need to buy a bed for Emily. Too bad for them.

So more delays in getting our house put back together. I don’t want to move my workspace twice. I’ll just keep working on the wiggly card table and we’ll set up the Christmas tree in the newly finished office /computer room. It bums me out.

Anyway, I’m trying to work tonight and my brain is like a pinball machine - bouncing around all over the place. My chairman apologized for blowing me off the past two weeks and suggested I submit outstanding questions via email. I did! Two whole pages of them - mostly about how to validate survey questions I have to invent myself. There are 3 or maybe 4 questions that I can’t adapt a validated instrument for.

ecstacy

2011-12-02T11:58:00.000-08:00

I took today off work to finish writing Chapter 2. It’s coming along, but I’ve been a measly mouse lately, putting off a critical aspect of getting this whole mission (doing a dissertation) accomplished. There are few things I hate as much as using a telephone. Anyway, I grew a pair, mustered my testosterone, and called a person I’ve been meaning to call for weeks - of course my brain went on freeze when he actually answered the phone. I fully expected to leave a message and had even written notes of what I wanted to say. I don’t even know what I said. He answered and in my head, I heard “oh shit!” I stammered, mumbled, stuttered, back-tracked…..you get the idea. He now knows I’m as articulate as a pinecone.

Anyway, he agreed to meet with me next Tuesday to discuss whatever it was I told him I wanted to talk about. I can’t even remember what was said, but I wrote down Tuesday, 12:30, his room number. It’s hard to imagine I’ve been able to survive as long as I have. It was a wasted effort when God gave me a mouth and a brain.

Nevertheless….it’s done and I’m pleased as punch!! Now back to work!!!

life is good

get me a lasso - QUICK!

2011-11-29T18:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I’m totally NOT in the mood to work tonight…so here I sit screwing around and not working. I may as well make a dash to the liquor store and indulge, but I’ve committed to walking the straight and narrow until my proposal is submitted. If I don’t get back to work after posting this crap to my blog, I’m going to clean the bathroom (something really fun, right?)

I’ve been reading Tony’s blog and trying to learn about the psycho stuff he writes about. He’s a successful author and who better to take hints from than somebody who’s successful? I was never interested in his sort of stuff until recently, and it seems my dissertation is more suited to a DM in organizational psychology than a DM in information systems and technology. That happened out of my sheer ignorance. I became interested in near miss incidents because I loved listening to the safety and environmental managers talk about accident investigations and dumb things people do that cause accidents. That was long ago and now that I know more…I believe it’s wrong to blame the victims when we should be blaming the system that enables and sometimes even facilitates people to make mistakes. But of course, there are plenty of dumb-asses in the world, no doubt about it.

By chance, I’m implementing a Near Miss reporting system for my employer so all the research helped me make some good decisions for them (not that they would give a shit…I’m just doing my job). So once I started researching about safety, I learned it’s all about supervisors playing head games with their subordinates, trust, social exchanges, reciprocity, etc. I have the EQ of a hand grenade and I’m going to have to defend this thing (hopefully) in the spring. My dissertation study does have important implications for companies investing big bucks in reporting systems. It’s not without merit.

Tony says he gave his “free child” two weeks off from writing. I’m going to have to beat mine with a club to get it back to the grindstone. My free child is not very compliant. The draft of Chapter 2 is nearly done, but it needs a lot of cleanup and I have to add about 40 or so references to the reference pages yet (I got really lazy with references lately). It also needs some sub-headings. I ran the first 25 pages through the plagiarism checker and it was clean. I love when that happens!

Home improvements are still going on. The new floor is down and I love it!! Here’s a photo of the ex-dining room / new office room. Now I’ve decided I want a big area rug in it, new curtains, and it’s supposed to be painted tomorrow (I think). We have a new back door off the laundry room. It might look like a plain-Jane ordinary door to you, but to me…it’s beautiful! Pristine and white. Even the glass is clean J)))

New floor

So I went to the doctor last night and let him cut the place off my lip. He cut it all away and sent it off for a pathology check. If it’s OK, I do nothing else but live with the scar. If it’s bad, I go back for more cutting. Hopefully I am through with it all. It’ll be a small scar and it’s not like I was ever a beauty queen to begin with. I’m supposed to find out results in two weeks.

I threatened Gracie that I will send her to military school if she doesn’t straighten up. She continues to chew everything up and I can’t get a moment of peace when we’re in the same room together. Hmmmm…maybe I should send my free child to military school with her. Maybe my free child is gonna run away from home…join a gang, or kill me in my sleep.

holi(daydreaming)

2011-11-26T20:14:00.000-08:00

The four-day weekend is nearly over. I still have hopes that a full draft of Chapter 2 can be finished by tomorrow night (even though here I am taking a break)! I must have shit for brains. The day was devoted to finishing up a sections on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and safety citizenship behavior (SCB). SCB was just going to be a subsection of OCB, but as it grew, it got a section all by itself.

It was a nice holiday. We went to my in-laws’ house for dinner on Thanksgiving. It’s crazy on holidays – lots of people and tons of food - but it’s nice to see everyone. My husband’s family is very close. I feel really lucky that the families of both my husbands are all very nice people. Sarah and Desmond came down for a quick visit. We went out to dinner and to see the Festival of Trees (Christmas trees). That was lovely but I am not ready to think about Christmas. It’ll be here before we know it though. At the moment, we have no place to put up a Christmas tree. The workers will be back on Monday and will hopefully finish up the floors so I can move stuff back into the closets and put some of the furniture back in place.

I don’t believe I’ve ever had Thanksgiving with my mother. If I did, I was too young to remember. We rarely visited my dad but one of the times we went up there was over Thanksgiving. We went to his wife’s parents’ house for dinner. His wife was mad that my grandmother didn’t pack nice clothes for us to wear. Her parents lived on a large farm and I didn’t understand why it was important for us to wear good clothes to visit the country. In fact, I hated dressing up because I was not allowed to get my good clothes dirty. I liked her parents’ barn though, because it was always full of cats and kittens.

Here is a photo of what my family might have looked like. My grandmother told me this was taken on Easter, but my folks were already split up and gone. We are dressed up so we must have been going to church, or perhaps we were just back from church. It doesn’t seem likely that we went to church together, so maybe this was no more than a visit situation and photo opportunity.

my imaginary family

time skew

2011-11-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

It’s only Tuesday night but I seemed to have moved on into a new dimension. Thanksgiving is Thursday and Someone went out and bought groceries. I’ll be making a quick vege casserole to take to the big feed over at the in-laws house. There will be obscene amounts of food on Thursday…I don’t even want to think about it. My head has not been in the current time zone lately.

My brother exited the hospital and refused rehab. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, but I can guess. He and I are very much alike.

The home improvements are well underway. We’ve had a monsoon here all day and rain for the past few days. I haven’t been outside to take pictures. The screened porch is now reinforced and rescreened. The little deck was torn down and built back – bigger, better, and higher off the ground. We really like it! I’ll get some photos when the weather improves.

So we have a new floor to replace the old beat up parquet floor. They are laying it overtop the old wood floor. I called several places but nobody is willing to sand and refinish parquet floor. The floor will go in the foyer, hall, and in the dining room…soon to become the computer room/my office room. I’ve decided we’re painting the new office room. They got a few planks put down today.

The new floor is lighter...I hope it'll go OK with the woodwork.

Dining room soon to be my new office room and computer room

Hoarder's paradise

The above picture here is my temporary workspace - a saggy, rickety card table surrounded by all the clutter from the dining room, the hall coat closet and another closet. I went to Office Max today at lunch and looked at desks. They are all that composite wood that weighs a ton. I'd rather have a real wood desk that is easier to move around and constructed better.

The last photo here is our bathroom. It is rewired, painted, and has a new floor down. It's ready for fixtures and a new light...as soon as everything comes in. We are waiting for the sink cabinet and light bar for over the sink mirror to come in. Not much to see in this photo, but here it is.

half bathroom

So tomorrow is my last day of work then a four-day weekend. I must work like a dog to catch up on my proposal. I'm getting a new boss in two weeks. I've been asking around to see what people know about him. I heard two interesting remarks. One person said he is "high maintenance". The other person said they call him "the pretty boy". That last bit of info is valuable. I'll have to try not to ruffle his feathers.

Gracie...trying to be a good dog

dire straits

2011-11-19T20:44:00.000-08:00

It was a spinning-my-wheels sort of day. Tomorrow has to be very different. It’s too much stuff running through my head while I’m trying to concentrate on my proposal – chapter 2. I wanted to be done last weekend and here I am with four more sections to write… at least 20 pages to write, probably more.

My brother has been in intensive care this week; he’s still in the hospital. He’s doing some hard-core detoxing. Hopefully it’s not all for nothing. I fear it will be. He’s already making plans, and the beast always wins.

Beast

We have a lovely new deck on the back of our house now – much nicer and a bit bigger than the old one. Next we are getting a new floor in our foyer, hall, and dining room. It will all be the same, and the dining room will be transformed into an office. Still debating repainting it. It was white when we moved in, and it’s still white. Imagine the room with color……hmmmm…..what color? Or imagine leaving it white for now and getting settled back in and back to work as quickly as possible.

It’s been a week of disappointments, negotiations, travel, and stress. Driving down to the hospital last night reminded me of the trips to the hospital to visit my grandparents. The room my brother was in was all too familiar. Interestingly, I mentioned that to my other brother and he said he had the same premonitions.

rough seas

2011-11-13T18:01:00.000-08:00

Sibling rivalry can get really ugly, but only recently have I realized just how ugly it can be. It is really hard with twin girls and we (father and I) always thought we were careful not to show favoritism, to treat them the same as much as possible given the night-and-day differences in them. Of course, I know it’s impossible to treat any two people the same because no two people are the same. Not long after they started talking, I started hearing the complaint that something wasn’t or isn’t fair. My standard reply was (and still is) that there is nothing fair in life.

What is remarkably in my face these days is how the girls are constantly comparing themselves to each other. Both also make assumptions/accusations about how their father and I are constantly comparing them and what our expectations are. Sometimes I wonder how we will survive these last two and a half years of high school. It’s been a very, VERY tough year for all of us.

let there be shelves!

2011-11-10T18:11:00.000-08:00

I blew off work tonight…not a good thing at all. It’s time to make a plan to move my workspace. All these books, and CDs, and stacks of paper, and God knows what else that stay stacked up in front of my face are going to the living room. In this room I’m in, we’re tearing out carpet and getting new light. My favorite part: clearing out the clutter and putting what I want in here back in here. I’d love to have it painted, and change these damn drapes. This room has been my cocoon for more than three years now. It’s dreadful! I need shelves, LET THERE BE SHELVES!!! We’ve purchased a legion to improve our castle here. It’s going to be good! MY SPACE. Well *sigh* not really.

My dissertation…I’m writing about safety culture, and stumbled across some interesting controversy. Not going to think about it tonight though…seeing’s how I’m taking a break and all.

I’ve been including some old family photos because well…what good are old family photos shut away in a shoe box forever? Here is a photo of great grandfather Black holding my little brother. That couple standing in the back left are my parents. It looks like they are still a couple. The white building in the background is a church in St Paul, Kentucky. On the back of the building was a room where ladies got together for quilting bees. There were big trees behind the church that made wonderful shade. They were old sycamores and black walnut trees. On the far side of the church, just past the churchyard fence, was my great grandfather’s best watermelon patch. The girl sitting and looking at the camera, is my father’s cousin, Kathy. She got married and had four children. Her husband murdered her when her youngest child was (I think) high school age. On the right in the darkness, you can make out the wheel of an old rusty wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow was my personal favorite – it was the easiest to handle when it was loaded heavy. I zoomed way in to see it, also saw it looks like a big scab on my face.

Great grandfather holding little brother

I have one (big scab) now, thanks to Gracie. I bent over to pick something up off the floor as she bounced up to jump on me (she is a bouncy, energetic young dog). We collided and her fang scraped a big bloody gouge across my nose. I think it’s bruised too. Lovely…we’ll see what it looks like tomorrow.

home improvements underway

2011-11-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

I backed out of the driveway this morning, same as always. Just as I shifted from reverse to drive, I glanced up and saw an 8-point buck standing in the road right in front of me. He was magnificent. We looked at each other for a few seconds; he tipped his horns toward me and snorted, and then moved on making his way toward the woods behind our house.

Contractors tore into our house yesterday. So it begins!! Finally!!! Unfortunately, this is the worse time for it but so it goes. Years ago, when we had our kitchen remodeled and our basement finished, I agonized over every decision. So many choices and I wanted it all to be wonderful and perfect in the end. This time, I have no time for the distraction of it all. Saturday morning I got to the paint store as soon as it opened and grabbed some of those sample paint strips in shades of green, gold, and brown. Next I stopped at the floor store, selected samples of two laminate and two vinyl. I made final decisions on the floors of five rooms in less than 15 minutes total – 10 minutes in the store and 5 minutes in my house. Paint color is another story...and I still need to pick bath fixtures – a new tub, toilets, sinks, faucets, towel bars, etc.

Very early in my marriage, I learned that sharing a bathroom with my husband would be impossible. He is just much too gross. Perhaps I’m a man-hater and my standards are too strict, but sharing a bathroom with my first husband was not an issue. He was so much better at cleaning up after himself. He had gone to military school when he was young and I think they drilled good habits into him. He told me that he was frequently made to clean showers and latrines while he attended the school and it totally grossed him out. I worked restaurants in high school and college and cleaning rest rooms was always part of my job. No doubt about it, many people are insensitive and gross. My husband isn’t a slob because he’s insensitive; he’s just got the maturity of a 12 year old when it comes to things like cleanliness. Perhaps I should hire a nanny for him.

Our newest mess-maker...about to create another

critical overflow

2011-11-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

It’s been an insane week….and about to get worse. Emily has been sick all week and missed school five days. That’s tough with her schedule of accelerated classes. The kids get a four day weekend for a teachers meeting and election day, and I collected all her missed assignments from her teachers, but she is still unable to do much. She saw her pediatrician twice and an ENT specialist this week. Next week, she has more tests. They want to rule out common things and some scary things before they send her to a cardiologist. So yes, it’s a lot on my mind…I hate to think my daughter is sick and nobody knows what’s wrong or when she will be better.

Also, the contractor called and is ready to start tearing into our house Monday morning. This has been in the works for many months, but I’m not ready. I have no time to spare, but tomorrow I must start packing stuff up and moving it out of the way, and go pick out floor covering, paint, and bathroom fixtures. We are renovating two full baths and a half bath…can I just do them all the same?

Also this week, I did some of the final paperwork for my grandfather’s estate. Two more small details (assuming this last bit was done correctly) and it will all be over. When my grandmother died, my grandfather was unable to get out much so I did the legwork to settle her estate for him. When I walked out of the bank on the last detail, it kind of hit me that that was the last thing I would ever do for her. My grandfather has been gone for 16 months, but doing his paperwork seems to keep him in the present. It’s funny that I grew up with this man – I lived in his house (he was my father), but I hardly knew him at all until the very end. He talked more in the last months of his life than he did in all the other years I knew him combined. He was a man of very few words.

Pop with my brothers and me

Also, I have to get Chapter 2 of my dissertation cranked out by the end of next weekend. That’s a commitment I put on myself. I submitted Chapter 1 to my chairman for review. He returned it with NO corrections at all. That's good news, or does it just mean he barely read it? I know I'm not that good! He said it was rock solid and to submit it to my committee for review. The man on my committee said he won’t review anything until the proposal is complete. The woman on my committee said she will review it and give me feedback by the end of the weekend. I wish I had more women on my committee.

xenophobia?

2011-10-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

When Sarah and I lived in our house on Brentwood, we used the spare bedroom as a playroom for her. We kept her toys in there and this is where she played most of the time when we were home.

One day when she was around five years old, I was in my room tidying up and she came running in with a look on her face like she’d seen a ghost. “What’s wrong?” I asked. Horrified, she shook her head as if the words wouldn’t come out. She grabbed my hand, pulled me into the playroom, and blurted, “Space aliens.” I’m thinking…space aliens? I looked around the room and saw nothing unusual. I ask, “Where?” She said, “They were all over, but now they’re gone.” I asked her where she was when she saw them. She walked over to the dolls in the floor and sat down. “I was just playing with my dolls like this and they sparkled all around me.” “Well, looks like they’re gone now.” I said, unable to imagine what she could have seen that reminded her of sparkling space aliens. Sarah reached for her doll and exclaimed, “There they are!!!” She leapt up, ran to me, and clung tightly.

For a brief second, I saw what she was talking about. She was wearing a bracelet that reflected the sunlight coming through the window. It made patterns of bright light on the ceiling and walls. The poor little girl was terrified by this phenomenon. I smiled at her, took her bracelet, and showed her what she was seeing. We experimented with my ring and watch to make more sparkles on the walls and ceiling. It's nature to fear the unknown. It must be TV and movies that make little children imagine scary creatures from outer space.

self-extermination

2011-10-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

I started to write a vile, nasty post yesterday. It was an articulation of the worst possible mood….with lots of the F word. I know nobody cares what the hell I say here. Still, this is public space and I don’t want to F myself out of a job someday. Some HR rep will Google me, find my web site, and decide he/she can’t hire a foul-mouthed fleabag like me.

What set me off was bad news. After all that shit I did to my face, I’m going to have to be cut on anyway. That pisses me off. The dermatologist was ready to pull out the chainsaw right on the spot (not really, he said the initial biopsy will require a needle and scalpel)…might as well do it right from the start and just cut off my whole face with a chainsaw.

I was the doc’s last victim of the day ( 4:30 appt – he walked into the torture chamber at 7:30 - punctuality is not his thing). He shook my hand, told me he was exhausted from the long day and running two 10K’s over the weekend. I didn’t feel good about him cutting on my face in that state – I prefer him to be no more than the usual state of tired if he’s putting a knife into my face. I suggested we put it off a month. That gives me plenty of time to stew and worry over it, and who knows, maybe something horrific will happen before then and having my face mutilated will be the least of my worries. (I always try to look on the bright side of things). As I left, he told me I can’t wish it away. He also told me he survived melanoma on his leg at age 36 and 5 years ago he had a radical prostatectomy. Hmmmmm…. should I have congratulated him?…but I just remarked that he’s a lucky man who’s been through a lot. What do you say to something like that? His point was that I'm a whiney puss, suck it up, and deal with it. Yeah – I’ll do that next month.

Everything else that has me in a shitty mood involves my chronic disorganization and procrastination in every facet of my life. I never learn. I don’t want a gravestone, but if I had one, my epitaph should state “She never learned shit”. I want to be cremated and have my ashes thrown somewhere…I don’t care where as long as it isn’t on concrete or pavement. And don’t put my ashes in a F’ing urn - I want to be free and loose.

When things get bad at work, I reflect on Erin’s picture; it hangs beside my phone. She drew it when she was 5 or 6 years old. As shitty as things are lately, they could be much worse (remind myself). Maybe in some cases, the lady is better off letting go of the rope.

Drawn by Erin long ago

my secret box

2011-10-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

When I was young, I had a metal box that locked with a small key. I stored my most valuable treasures in the box and kept it hidden from everyone. I found the box in the neighbor’s trash with the key sticking out of the lock. It was rusty and dented which is probably why it was discarded. Usually I kept it in my closet, but when I thought my brother was looking for it, I hid it in the basement, or garage, or outside somewhere. I always hid the key separate from the box just to be extra sure my valuables were safe.

In my box were rhinestones, gumball machine trinkets, Cracker Jack toys, bits of colored broken glass, pretty rocks, beads, buckeyes, tiny pinecones, acorns, and Indian arrow heads. I had feathers from blue jays, cardinals, gold finch, and pigeons. There were a few dead butterflies, some sea shells, and a pressed four-leaf clover. I kept two little dogs and a fish that I carved from sticks. Also, I’d saved some Canadian coins, a Japanese coin with a hole in the middle, and some pennies that trains ran over and flattened. I hid my matches and some candles in the box too.

My most valued treasure in the box was a used tissue. I was about seven years old one of the times my mother visited. I stood beside her and watched in awe as she meticulously transformed herself in front of the bathroom mirror with a bag of cosmetics – face cream, foundation, powder, blush, eye liner, eye shadow, mascara, eyelash curler, brow powder, and lipstick. I thought she looked like a princess or movie star with her make-up on. My mother painted her lipstick on with a small brush and blotted her lips with a tissue forming a perfect pink kiss print. She dropped it into the trash and left the room. When she had gone downstairs and I was sure nobody would see me, I took the tissue and hid it in my box. Sometimes when I missed my mother very much, I pressed the tissue against my cheek and imagined she was giving me a kiss.

Mother's father holding me, and Mother

bad dog / good dog

2011-10-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

She had a rough start. She wound up in the animal shelter – one of a bunch of pups abandoned…mama dead on the highway. She was different from the rest. The others looked like white wired hair terriers and were adopted out quickly. Our Gracie is a German shepherd \ blonde Labrador retriever \Shar pei mix and different from her littermates. *sighing deeply*

Gracie was a very bad dog today. She breached the barrier between upstairs and downstairs this afternoon while she was home alone. She went up into Erin’s room, and got into her jewelry box – Erin left the bottom drawer open. Gracie only destroyed old rubber bracelets, but these happened to be the ones with sentimental value. Gracie is high on Erin’s shit list!

Yesterday afternoon, Gracie chewed into a box of my grandmother’s old dishes. She chewed a glass bowl that was at least 250 years old and it broke into three pieces. It didn’t seem to cut her – I checked her mouth. Later that evening, I glanced over and she had a streak of bright red on her leg. I gasped thinking it was blood. Turns out, it was bright red paint. She’d somehow found a small bottle of red craft paint and chewed it up. We now have red paint on the carpet that we are replacing soon.

Gracie and I came to an understanding. I’m the alpha in this house and she’d better walk the walk or she’s going to be an outside dog. She has figured out the electric fence. She knows the pain and collar that produces it. She’s going to enjoy some of the aspects of outside dog life – more interactions with diverse creatures, diverse scenery, more space to roam, falling asleep in the sun. She has learned to stay well inside the white flags. We want her to be outside when we’re gone, and inside when we’re home. Outside means access to the garage. She was well behaved this evening after our meeting of the minds.

tragedy in China

2011-10-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

Have you read the story about the little girl in China who was hit by a car and people just ignored her until she was run over again? Unbelievable!! I feel sick when I accidentally squash a squirrel or hit a bird…..I can’t imagine striking a child and driving away. What is this world coming to? Does something like this happen in China because they have so many people that a single life has no meaning?

I found this picture of me – if it was taken in August of ’62, I am not yet five years old. My hair has no natural curl at all, so apparently this was taken after my mother visited. My mother insisted on perming my hair when she visited. She came about once or twice a year…it got to the point where I stayed under the bed when she came and refused to come out. I hated perms! I’m sitting on the picket fence in front of my great grandparents’ house in St. Paul, Kentucky. My feet are against one of the many, very large maple trees in the front yard. We used to put pennies on the railroad tracks and let the trains run over them and flatten them.

I spent a lot of time under beds when I was growing up. I was a climber – climbed like a monkey before ever trying to walk and I wouldn’t stay in my baby bed. I was not quite a year old when my baby brother came along. They gave him the baby bed and put me to sleep in bed with my older brother (18 months older than me). Apparently I didn’t like sleeping with him either and they found me just about every morning under the bed (my grandfather told me this story). It was my favorite place to play as well, until I was too old for playing. When under a bed, nobody can sneak up on you…and sometimes nobody knows you’re there.

Flight of Fear

2011-10-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

We took the girls and two pals to King’s Island yesterday – a big amusement park just north of Cincinnati. It’s not a bad drive, taking a little less than three hours to get there. The park was packed because this time of year, in addition to the rides they have themed haunted attractions to walk through. Jerry and the girls love these, but I’m pretty much wiped out after 8 hours of standing in line for rides all day. By the time the haunts open, I’m tired and not in the mood to have people dressed up jump out and scare me time and again. I can appreciate the elaborateness of it all and the pains the actors go to so that they look realistic…but you go into these expecting the unexpected.

At the front gate, I snapped a few photos of the girls, and off they went never to be seen again until midnight, our intended time to leave.

Jerry and I had the day to kill. We started with a smaller roller coaster because the line was relatively short (30 minute wait). Next we got in line for Flight of Fear. That was a 60 minute wait. We rode it last year and I remember it was fun. Jerry didn’t remember it – I told him it was just like Space Mountain (at Disney World…which he loves). The ride has a space theme – you are launched into darkness – the signs warn you to keep your head back on the headrest during launch. Good advice. We entered the black hole and immediately went upside down which caused me to remember…oh yeah, this is nothing like Space Mountain. That’s what the girls told me last year to get me to go on it. It was fun, but I don’t like being fastened down like that….although I appreciate being fastened down securely rather than taking the risk of being flung out of the seat into the darkness. Jerry loved it and wanted to go again, but the wait when we came back around to enter was over 120 minutes.

Next, we rode FireHawk – it is out in the open, so I knew what we were in store for. It’s a roller coaster where you ride laying down on your back, moving head first. It’s another one where you are fastened tightly into your seat, and yes…it’s not so great for us claustrophobes, but security is necessary and good in this situation. You sit in a seat, buckle in, and at the very start (before take off) the seats tip back until your head is slightly past parallel. Not a good feeling. In the video, you get an accurate perspective. I was not one with my hands out – I had a death grip on the bars. It was so much fun, we waited 120+ minutes to ride it a second time.

We had an uneventful trek home. We travel a rural highway and must be wary for deer, raccoons, and possums in the road. We saw all of those but fortunately didn’t hit any. I caught a nasty cold yesterday so today I’m staying away from everyone and laying low. I didn’t do any work on my dissertation all weekend. NOT GOOD.

morning morosity

2011-10-14T07:25:00.000-07:00

Time is a face on the water – Stephen King (still my favorite author).

What is the meaning of time? Conceptually, it’s a form of measurement. Personally, it has always been an enemy and a source of frustration. It always seems to pass too fast or too slow, and there’s no way to control it. I’ve spent a lifetime watching a calendar and clock, planning and waiting impatiently.

Control is always temporary and illusive – it’s an imposter! Trying to get control of things is frustrating. Do any of us have real control of anything in our lives? All we really have is here and now, and if we’re lucky, we can have hope for the future. If I lived alone on this planet, would time and control be less important? If we had no means to measure time, would it be less important?

We were rushing out the door this morning – the girls and me off to school and work. I stepped out on the porch and the moon grabbed my attention – I set my crap down, pulled out my shitty phone camera and snapped this photo. It just doesn’t do it justice – the silver white moon seemed huge peeking through the yellow gold leaves of the tulip tree. I asked the girls if they saw the moon – none of them noticed it at all. How did they miss it?

I’ve spent over four hours on the phone with HP the past two evenings – my PC is having power issues…not good. The only way the damn thing will boot after it’s cold is to remove the battery and plug it into AC. Last night, they had me run 40 minutes of diagnostics and determined the machine has no hardware/mechanical/integrity errors. OK, so what’s the next step? They say if the problem persists, we’ll reimage the hard drive and restore factory settings. Lovely….another 4-6 hours lost productivity. Not only that, being a disorganized person, I’ll have to go on a scavenger hunt to find all my install DVDs for all the software I’ve loaded. I’m not a happy HP customer these days - they are wasting TOO much of my time. I believe my laptop does have a hardware/mechanical/integrity error when it’s cold. I hate when shit doesn’t work like it’s supposed to!

Mother Nature has a sense of humor

2011-10-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

I was hard at work revamping Chapter One this weekend when Jerry came in from outside and insisted I had to go check out the pile of sawdust where we had a tree cut down a year ago or so. Why? I know him all so well after all these years. I knew it had to be something naughty by the look on his face. I picked up my camera and stepped out back to find these growing. Yes of course. The big question in my mind is whether I’m married to Beavis or Butthead – who is more mature? It doesn’t matter, either are more mature than Jerry. He just cackled at these toadstools…and I admit they made me smile because he got such a big kick out of them. Mother Nature has a sense of humor sometimes.

Interesting Toadstools

Chapter One is coming along. I’m pleased to report it could be possible that I’ve reached saturation regarding the literature. That means there’s nothing else in the library to include….it’s an expression one of my professors used a while ago. I was looking for further evidence on four points tonight and there was nothing new to include. How about that!

My goal is to submit a draft of Chapter One to my chairman Monday night. The challenge will be to do this while spending all day Saturday at King’s Island. We promised the girls all year we’d take them to FearFest. We did this last year (I had a blog post about it here). The entire family knows I will not be getting back on the Diamond Back this year. Jerry will have to ride solo or find some other idiot to ride with him. I’m not into that huge vertical drop again. After the first drop, it wasn’t bad, but it’s not like you can skip the beginning. I hope the weather is perfect.

deranged

2011-10-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

I’m planning to use the MLQ-5X for my study. I’ve spent the entire evening trying to understand how the survey works exactly. It’s 45 questions….a lot of questions in comparison to the servant leader survey that only has 23 questions. Perhaps it’s because the MLQ-5X ranges multiple styles from transactional leader to transformational leader, whereas with the servant leader survey, the participant is tested to be/not be a servant leader.

Chatted with my sweet Sarah tonight :) She remarked that she thinks my little-girl pictures look like hers. I don’t see it, but I found one of her where she is early-two years old. Does this beautiful little girl look anything like me? Other than hair…I don’t see it. She is her father’s face to me.

Sarah, age 2+

Anyway….we are having a fence installed for Gracie next week…the underground electric sort where the dog wears a lovely shock collar and learns discipline the hard-core human way! It makes me want to don black leather, hip boots, and whip something (no, not really) – only in my imagination! Lot’s of things are much better left in one’s imagination.

Speaking of black leather….I was a motorcycle mama for a while in my youth. Not a trashy one though. I was never tempted to get a tattoo…I don’t mind tattoos…I just don’t want one on me. Some are quite amazing though. I never went bra-less or smoked cigarettes (in public…wait maybe I did) or never-ever cussed somebody out in public. I had a black leather jacket (one of Woody’s old castoff’s). Leather is perfect because the dead bugs wipe off easier. I wore a helmet with a windshield – two reasons – I wear contacts and I don’t like bugs planting into my face. He had a Harley Sportster that would fly.

We had adventures on that bike. Woody’s rule – never go 20 miles without a pack of tools strapped onto the back. The engine vibrated miserably. Every time we stopped, he tightened bolts. Sometimes he stopped on purpose to tighten bolts. There was a covered bridge, perhaps the one over Cabin Creek in Mason County that was fairly high over a deep-wooded ravine. We would always take a break there. We’d sit out on the outside of the covered bridge, legs dangling off the concrete supports Stock Bower added when he restored the bridge…and drink some beers, he’d\we’d smoke, and take in the lush beauty of the place. Quiet, the rustle of deer, squirrels, woodpeckers, yeah…the good life! In hot, dry Augusts, lots of times there’d be snakes swimming across the creek all afternoon. Woody had a 22-semi automatic pistol. We would take turns shooting snakes. ooh, to think back about it….it seems so brutal. But it was exhilarating at the same time……UGH, I did that!!! I killed those poor snakes….and I hate snakes. I feel like that two-headed monster again.

Sarah gave me an interesting idea tonight!

Outer Limits

2011-10-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

I have a little photo album with old black and white pictures in it. I’ve been scanning them because some look to be fading. When I left home, I took a handful of photos that I didn’t think anyone would miss. They had shoeboxes of photos, but I don't know what happened to them.

dad & me, 1963

I found this one of my dad and me; it was probably taken by my grandfather. It was developed in March of ’63 according to the date on the back. I would have been 5. Obviously we had already moved to Portsmouth because this photo is taken in Mound Park. It looks like he is putting a balsa wood airplane together. On one corner of the park, there was a little store that sold ice cream, pop, candy, airplanes, and kites. Sometimes my brothers and I would scour the alleys picking up empty bottles. We’d pick up a couple of grocery sacks of them and take them into the store for the refunds. On a good day, we’d have enough for a plane and pack of baseball cards. Actually, my brothers liked baseball cards. I liked Outer Limits cards. Same idea, but the cards had monsters on them from the Outer Limits TV series. I loved having them, but they gave me nightmares!

Outer Limits cards

Dad used to drive down and visit us every few months when we were young. We had fun when he visited. We did stuff with him my grandmother would have never let us do…like ride our bikes in the street, take a drag off his cigarette, and play with his lighter (I was especially fond of anything fire related). He drove a Mustang for a while and I remember him taking us for a ride in it. He drove very fast…so fast it scared me. He laughed at us for being afraid and told us we were worry-warts like our grandmother. I really don’t remember much about him other than that. My grandmother always said my older brother was just like him.

rest in peace, Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T05:21:00.000-07:00

In 2005, following the bout with cancer, Jobs delivered Stanford University's commencement speech.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life," he said. "Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-dies-at-56-after-long-battle-with-pancreatic-cancer/#ixzz1a0DpE33B

It makes me sad that Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. Evidently he knew the end was near six weeks ago when he gave up his position with Apple. I have read that he could be a real asshole to work with at times, but who isn’t an asshole when he is trying to realize a vision? His passion drove him to clear away obstacles – whoever or whatever they were. The world has lost a dreamer and a great mind.

reality check

2011-10-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

I went into work this morning, all inspired to volunteer for a crazy project doomed for failure. Why? I can make the difference. I like the project leader and I hate to see him fail so miserably. I docked my laptop, plopped down into my chair and all enthusiasm left when I saw how many emails were waiting. How can I volunteer for more when I can’t begin to juggle all I have now? STUPID!

My boss sent me an urgent notice to schedule a meeting with him today. Ok then – our calendars showed the only overlapping free time was noon and I wanted to take Gracie to get her stitches out today (she was spayed 10 days ago), and I know my boss likes to work out at lunch every day. I rescheduled two meetings to fit us together this afternoon. I called him expecting something Important and all he asked me about was something I’ve been telling him about in the past 6 project status updates and two prior monthly progress letters I’ve sent him (not to mention I invited him to the demo a few weeks ago and providing him a summary of meetings about this thing he asked me about). Why do I have to waste my time writing all this crap for him when obviously he doesn’t read it. Retirement is looking better every day.

So here’s another photo I found of my brothers and me. It’s kind of neat to see that ice creams bars were nine cents back in those days. I haven’t bought one forever….have no idea what they cost now. Probably they are smaller, and cost at least 90 cents. I might go visit my brother this weekend…I haven’t seen him in a while. We talked on the phone last week; nothing has changed...other than he is sicker and more desperate.

permanent insanity

2011-10-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

I worked out of town today and was offline from wake-up (6:15 AM) until now. I must be an Internet junkie. Not only that, I had my cell off almost all day. ugh…….*need oxygen*. My neuro system craves electronic stimulation…apparently.

So today I had a “training” course in the morning that I hoped would be great...it was OK, BUT…but I didn’t learn much. The guy gave a lecture on influencing organizational culture. He didn’ t tell me anything I didn’t already know, and I thought his conceptualizations of culture and climate were conflicting and even confusing. He was an awesome entertainer though. He took a potentially boring topic and made it interesting….and gave me some brilliant ideas! That makes it worth it to me personally. He was also quite nice to look at. He had curly dark hair *giggle*

Oh dear God…I’ve been hitting the whiskey tonight. I’m about to make a dreadful confession and post it for the world. *breathe* I’m going to volunteer for a project team in the morning. Actually, I want to unite some project coalitions. It’s going to be exciting!! The meeting this afternoon was fascinating, a strategy meeting. It’s a risky project, but potentially monumental. I’m insane!

homecoming

2011-10-03T19:52:00.000-07:00

I am officially done!!! DONE!!! The last assignments and team paper for the last class are submitted. Now, just the dissertation. I’m taking a few days off and then it’s do or die. With the last couple of classes I learned a different method that makes me a more efficient writer. Why did it take three years to figure it out?? No matter, I need to see what’s been published in the past six months that’s relevant. Also, there’s some new motivation in the news lately – several severe industrial accidents at a steel mill and a chemical plant in our area.

My girls went to their high school homecoming dance last Saturday night. Such a big deal for them! They both said they had a good time and I’m happy for them. They got to pretend to be princesses again (only it’s a lot more expensive at 15 than when they were five).

Before the dance

It’s hard to get excited over school dances. I couldn’t buy a date back then, so school dances served only to remind me about what a loser I was. I was so homely and geeky, no people skills at all…nothing going for me. So, oh well, there was never any danger of me turning up with teenage pregnancy or STDs. Nowadays, every dance is like a prom. Fancy clothes, flowers, dinner before, entertainment after, etc. Girls get their hair, makeup, and nails professionally done. Some even go to the tanning bed. Ridiculous!! Too much money and focus on appearances for one night. It's cost prohibitive for kids whose families don't have that kind of money to throw away.

offloading

2011-09-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

The witching hour approaches. Tomorrow is the homecoming dance at our high school. PLANS….of course the girls have BIG plans. I have been focused on my laptop this afternoon and evening. The girl voices jibber-jabbered in one ear / out the other. The tone was BIG PLANS. A house-full of kids coming over after the dance. We are so close to the high school…we’re convenient. That’s good and bad! Someone has agreed to do the bulk of the running (to the mall, hair salon, tennis, grocery store, etc. ad nauseum tomorrow). What a trooper!

So we had an interesting Discussion Question #2 due tonight. I was supposed to pose a discussion topic to the class. My question is what are the legal and ethical implications of capturing and using data collected on minors without parental consent? Business is become more invasive with their marketing tactics – RFIDs, contextual awareness, and pervasive computing. It’s very interesting to imagine all the ways our privacy could be invaded.

Winding down from this class…not yet. I submitted my most significant part of the team paper today (thanks to ½ vacation day from work). It was about my IT leadership model – dimensions were communication, relationship management, and authority. I proposed and supported it. Thanks very much, Mr. Team Lead. I was damn grateful you offered to take charge! I mean that most sincerely!!!

Work! I have opportunity in my hands. It’s good!!!

Photo – souvenirs from last Thursday’s walk around the lake. Signs of fall. My coworker and I escape some afternoons….a brisk 15 minute walk around the lake. A breath of sanity!

dove and hawk

2011-09-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

Last night, I was trying to dig down into work for my class, but the girls asked me to proof their English essays. They both have the same course and same teacher but for different class periods, thus the same assignments. The assignment required them to take a stand for or against war and argue the position. Emily took a pro-war position, arguing that war helps the economy, unites people with a sense of patriotism, makes a nation stronger (in that resources go for building weapons and soldiers are getting experience), and results in advances in technology. Erin took the against-war position for obvious reasons – all the suffering and destruction they cause, and money spent to wage war could be spent on health care, improving infrastructure, etc. One of these girls does not take constructive criticism well, but I won’t name names. I have to be very careful with both or they get all defensive and pissy. It’s shaky ground.

Anyway, helping with essays was like almost two hours of my evening, and then it was getting late. I downloaded some articles to read that hopefully will be useful for one of three sections I have to write for my team. LAST PAPER!!! Crawling to the finish line.

Time for a haircut again - I’ve been putting it off, along with lots of other things. It’s what procrastinators do, and it sucks being one. We just put shit off because why waste time doing what we don’t want to do when we might just die tonight anyway or maybe the world will end. That sounds rather pessimistic, or optimistic…depending on your point of view. My point of view changes often.

Exceeding thermal limits

2011-09-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

Things are getting crazy again. It’s all going to explode, melt down, or hit the fan…or whatever. Funny how that works – just keep piling on and piling on until finally it all crashes like a house of cards. Or in my situation, it’s time for some serious spontaneous combustion. Maybe that’s what happened to the poor Irish man. He just got wound so tight he had an internal holocaust.

I used to tell the kids their toys would spontaneously combust if they didn’t pick them up off the floor. Maybe the real truth was that their mommy was at the meltdown threshold – maybe she was ready to catch fire. Up in smoke. Maybe it’s time to visit the liquor store again – get some coolant for the reactor core.

Reflection

2011-09-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

Today was what?

Episodic…that’s what it was!

Groan,

Into the Trench,

DIG!

Bleed.

Drain out.

Ecstacy!!!

POWER – breath it in…….

recharge….

So, yeah, that was today. And I can’t believe I just had a conversation with Gracie. Gracie has been giving me some defiant-dog tactics lately. She knows what no means, but by no means is she obedient. Well some of the time she is. She minded fairly well until the girls got home….and therein probably lies the problem. When I’m home with her, there’s not much action….just me sitting and working, very low noise. When the girls are here, there’s constant motion and noise. Probably keeps her wired up.

Gracie, asleep at the bone

The ecstacy today was getting feedback on last week’s paper. It’s pleasing to be praised.

I was proofing the one due tonight. For the first time (and hopefully this doesn’t jynx me) I feel confident it will pass muster. That was my last individual paper for the last course.

H-A-L-L-E-L-U-J-A-H !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Victoria's Secret

2011-09-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

It was not a productive day today. Beautiful outside though – one of those clear air, early fall days. I’ve written five reply posts today, and did some collaboration with my team on the leadership dimensions for our model. I wanted to write all six posts today…didn’t happen.

So now, I’m celebrating Saturday night and failure. Ok, not failure, we’ll call it performing at about 13.5 sigma (on a Six Sigma scale). That pretty much equals failure but I don’t have to use the F word. We’ll euphemistically call it significant improvement opportunity.

I found this flyer from Victoria’s Secret that came in the mail. Erin added a bit of her insightful art work to it. I love it! It’s so female! (Click photo to enlarge it)

The girls had a blast at the Paranormal Convention today, Someone was miserable all day long and came home in the most vile of moods. Part of the problem is that he got lost coming and going. Partly because they deviated from planned schedule (because of spatial deficiencies and partly because of web site misinformation). Someone ran on the treadmill for at least two full hours after he took a nap this evening. It seems excessive to me (all that running), but I let him go at it without interfering. Someone is getting too short-tempered with me these days.

The end is near. Thank you God and Jesus and Mother Mary and all The Saints that be. Tomorrow I write one post and start (perhaps finish) the final individual paper I’ll ever have to write for this program. It’s going to be a long paper, but I’ve already layed it out in my head. Most of the research is done. Maybe this one will fall together by itself. I better hope so. Tomorrow might be a rough day. Today was…disappointing.

under the knife and paranormal activity

2011-09-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

I dropped poor Gracie off at the vet’s this morning. I feel so guilty! It’s the right thing to do though – she will be spayed and never have puppies. Maybe that means somebody who wants a puppy will go rescue one from the pound, or keep a stray that gets dumped on them rather than take a puppy we have to find a home for. The girls are hoping it makes her less volatile. The surgery might do that for a few days, but she is an energetic dog by nature. No doubt she is smart and she has traits of German shepherd and lab in her, but I think she is some sort of terrier mix. She’s not going to be a big dog and she definitely doesn’t have the disposition of either of those breeds. The only thing big about her is her ears – I love them. They remind me of rabbit ears. When she runs, they lay flat and flop.

Someone promised to take the girls to the Paranormal Convention tomorrow in Lexington, Kentucky (a little less than two hours from here). It’s a long story. He promised to take them for the whole weekend and then when they tried to hold him to the promise, he backed off and said they could do the entire 12 hour day Saturday. He tried to convince me to go – we could get a motel and I could stay there and work on my paper and he could watch TV. It was looking like I was going to have to go, but hey – we have a dog now and she’s having surgery today. I can’t go!! Someone agreed I should stay home and babysit our poor dog. I offered to pay for the motel room but he says two days is too much. The girls are excited to get autographs from the ghost adventurers who will be there.

The Paranormal Convention might be fun, at least for a few hours. Someone is not one who likes adventure or new things. This is one major difference between us. If we are still together in the future, I will probably be taking some vacations without him. I want to see Europe, and Canada, and travel all over the United States. Someone only desires to visit Disney World and Myrtle Beach (and perhaps Hawaii…again). I’m planning to take us to Phoenix next summer for my graduation. I can’t wait to visit the Grand Canyon, and maybe go rafting on the Salt River. Someone looks at me with angst when I say anything about the trip. He thinks we should get the graduation over with and jump a plane for Myrtle Beach. Our girls are almost 16 and they have seen Myrtle Beach every year of their lives. They’ve been to Disney World once, and one time (at my insistence) we went to Niagara Falls. Someone almost didn’t go with us, but changed his mind at the last minute. He even said he was surprised that it wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought it would be, but he would have had more fun in Myrtle Beach. Someone has a very closed mind.

visitor from hell

2011-09-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.' --- Edgar Allan Poe

Regretfully, I opened the door and invited that visitor in last night.

Nevermore.

Nevermore.

Nevermore.

Until next time….

ramblings

2011-09-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

I just learned my friend has completed her study; she’s written the last two chapters and submitted them to her editor. Ugh! I feel like such a failure!!! I haven’t failed yet, but hell, I want to be where she is. I’m slow. It’s true. Her topic is polypharmacology – she’s going to be a health care admin doctor. I’m going to be a doctor of management doctor. Near miss incidents interest me….and safety systems. Safety systems are all about perceptions of risk. People do what they do based on their perceptions of risk. Maybe that’s my assumption…perhaps it’s not true. Hmmmmmmm.

This was my reflection statement this week. It has a direct relationship to my dissertation.

The discussions this week reflected the importance of planning for strategic project success. Cho and Wright (2010) broadly defined a strategic project as one that plays a direct role in supporting a company’s strategy or has a profound effect on a company’s success or destiny. Regarding safety management systems, safety professionals rely on vendors’ promises and statistics to determine if implementing a safety system will improve safety in the workplace. In workplaces where the incident rate is very low, implementing a new safety system makes no measureable difference on traditional lagging metrics (number of injuries, designated environmental incidents, first aid cases, fatalities).

Safety systems are implemented similarly to security systems in that they are intended to provide layers of protection. New safety systems are added, but older systems are rarely decommissioned. Safety managers are afraid to remove anything for fear a resulting gap might have negative consequences. Is it possible for a successfully implemented strategic system to have a profound effect on a company’s failure?

References

Cho, V., & Wright, R. (2010). Exploring the evaluation framework of strategic information systems using repertory grid technique: a cognitive perspective from chief information officers. Behaviour & Information Technology, 29(5), 447-457. doi:10.1080/01449290802121206

I have a good feeling about my girls getting tutored for their pre-calculus class. It’s a long story – the twin who needed tutoring the most resisted help. They are both brilliant (of course, all my kids are brilliant :) and talented, and so is my step-daughter!) Their strengths are diverse but I think this is expected since people are diverse.

The twins are sophomores in high school this year, turning 16 in December. Where does the time go? It seems like only a few short years ago I was ragged from changing diapers and holding babies. (The twins are about 3 or 4 in this picture, the olders are about 13 and 15...I think).

time for a cool change

2011-09-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

It was time for a change! I let go of the redbuds and brought out a start-of-fall picture at the top of my blog here. The picture was taken with my crappy little cell phone. This past Friday, I took a quick walk around the lake behind the office building. It’s a wonderful place to walk and get away for a few minutes. The little lake is down over the hill on the right side.

Before you get to this point on the path, there’s a beautiful persimmon tree. I love persimmon trees. My great grandfather’s farm had a huge persimmon tree and giant black walnut across from the churchyard next door. I’ve eaten a few of them – they’re OK, not something I would seek out only if starving to death, literally. There was also a persimmon tree in the backyard of my house on Brentwood. And this one here on the grounds of my office building. I snapped this photo on Friday too. If you look closely (click to enlarge) you can see dark orange persimmons hanging from the branches.

Persimmon Tree

I need to get back to work. Today, I researched and wrote about task and human integration in international acquisitions, and the meaning and purpose of a vision statement. My team has already begun collaboration and deliberation to develop a 3D leadership model for planning and implementing successful strategic information system projects. Tomorrow, there’s another giant paper to crank out.

Speaking of change...I have new strings for my guitar. That sounds like more fun than work :)))

ain't no hollaback girl

2011-09-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

“Oh hot damn, this is my jam
Keep me partyin to the A.M.
You all don't understand
Make me throw my hands in the
ayer, ay, ayer, ayer, ay, ayer” ---- Flo Rida

It’s only about a 10 minute ride between our home and school in the morning – the girls have to get those last few minutes of music into their heads before I drop them off. They played this Oh hot damn number twice this morning and now it’s stuck in my head. Somehow, Hollaback Girl is more like what I feel when walking into my office and seeing a mountain on my desk….

“Uh huh, this my shit
All the girls stomp your feet like this
A few times I've been around that track
So it's not just gonna happen like that
Cause I ain't no hollaback girl
I ain't no hollaback girl” ------ Gwen Stefani

Not sure if all this work is my jam or my shit…but it’s piling up lately. But oh hot damn, at least it’s Friday and I only have to look at my shit one more day. Time to dive in!

weird phenomena

2011-09-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

There’s a katydid loose in the house tonight. A LARGE lovely green one. Katydid green is devine. My sweet Emily is terrified of any small thing with wings. Her phobia includes butterflies, moths (especially moths), grasshoppers, even lady bugs and lightning bugs (for heaven’s sakes)…and katydids. We seem to have a lot of them this fall….not sure why. Should be interesting in the morning if the katydid survives a dog and two cats.

Another weird phenomenon happened today. I was coming home from work tonight and sat across from this church at the red light. Take a look – a fairy ring (of toadstools). I didn’t see them in the morning, but they popped out that big at least overnight (if not just in the afternoon). We have a bunch of small ones growing in our back yard.

Another unfortunate thing happened tonight. About 20 miles north of here, a bad lightning storm hit. Three structures were struck and started fires. A fireman was also struck. The report sounds like it was a prime area for a tornado. We saw the sky lighting up from here, and heard the very low, distant rumble of thunder.

When I think about somebody getting struck by lightning, my nerves cringe all over. I was shocked when I was 17. Working as “kitchen help” in a small Italian pizza place, the kitchen help did everything – well, everything except make deliveries, carry heavy stuff, clean the freezers, or mop floors. It was late on a very busy night, we were short-handed with only four of us working the kitchen. I was in the front making pizzas, but I smelled something burning in the back oven. I hurried to the back and grabbed a potholder off the counter because the oven doors were always hot. The pot holder was very wet and when I took hold of the oven door with it, I felt a hard jolt – like it knocked all the air out of me. I don’t know what happened really, but the ladies said I took hold of the door and froze for like 5 seconds. I let go, took two or three steps back, and fell back. I remember being on the floor, everything inside feeling like jello, and then I started to cry uncontrollably. I just sat there and cried and people were standing around me looking at me – it was so humiliating! Anyway, the owner/manager took me to the back room and gave me some vodka…yeah, really. That settled my jagged nerves for sure. I sat there and watched TV for the rest of the night until my shift was up. He gave me the next day off too.

Before I left the restaurant that night, the electrician came in and talked to me. He said he wanted to see what kind of shoes I had on. They were running shows with whatever kind of composite soles they put on those shoes back then. He told me they were lucky shoes.

diggin' in the dirt

2011-09-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

I stepped outside this morning – the sun was shining, birds were singing, not a cloud in the sky, 80 degrees today…..and here I sat in front of this damn laptop all day. October 3rd is a lifetime away. I have to throw away four more weekends and then finally, I’ll have more freedom. This has been such a drudge, and at the same time, it hardly seems more than a few blinks of an eye.

I’m only kidding myself. When this class ends, I must dive and bury into getting a proposal finished. At least it’ll be something far more interesting than this crap I’m writing day after day. No…too harsh…I wrote some good crap today – stuff I really care about. It's a good place.

Everything inside this pea-brain of mine is all squirreled up lately. It does no good to complain or write about it. Maybe old age makes it impossible to keep everything sorted all neat and orderly, so our brains change from a nice grid of organized and categorized information into a haystack of raw data. We transform from lasagna to spaghetti – everything we know, all neatly layered and confined to a pan, changes to squiggly chaos on an open platter. That seems to be what is happening to me…anyway. Maybe it’s the start of Alzheimer’s. There’s plenty of that on my dad’s side…don’t know if there’s any on my mother’s side. It seems better to think this happens to everyone as a consequence of age rather than this happens to me because my brain is becoming jello.

Dick & me, St. Paul, KY

I found a small album of photos a few weeks ago. Here’s another one developed in 1960. It’s my older brother and me. We are playing in the dirt in front of my great grandparents’ house in St. Paul, KY. The picket fence in the photo is a compass arrow in my memory system. The fence is a significant boundary line in my life.

At work, I’m in a very favorable position of indirect power recently. It’s kind of been fun the past few days. Can work be fun? Is that possible?

That picture of me and Dick in the dirt reminds me of how much I miss working in my garden. Gardens also have very special meaning for me. Maybe that would make an interesting future blog post.

Acorns

2011-09-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

I found this photo of me and my brothers. If the picture was developed shortly after it was taken (assuming the date stamp is the date it was developed), I am not quite three, Mike is not quite two, and Dick is not yet five. Hmmm. I suppose that makes us 1, 2, and 4, but we look older than that. I’m not sure where the photo was taken, perhaps in the front yard of my great grandparents house. They had a swing like that in their front yard, but the grass was not as lush as it appears to be in this photo. The yard had many giant maple trees that made the grass thin because of so much shade. Picking up sticks all year was a regular chore for us kids, and raking leaves in the fall was a major project.

I found this photo and it makes me wonder about a lot of things….not suitable blog material. They say acorns don’t fall far from the trees. I am thankful that they can and do in some cases.

Tomorrow, I have to stir up some trouble at work. It will be an interesting day, if nothing else!

Balanced Scorecard

2011-09-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

Holiday is over and I’m still standing (well…sitting really). The paper for tonight was a bear to write. I submitted it with 120 or so words over the minimum. This paper built onto last week’s paper. I looked ahead at what next weekend has in store…immediate disappointment. MORE of this case study. This week, I had to ID and discuss immediate issues for “the company” that’s hell-bent on lightening-speed global expansion. The prompt said to do all the most critical issues…I came up with infrastructure, project management, relationship management, security, change management, and performance measurement. There were so many more I wanted to include…but how much can one global manager handle (assuming I’m the manager). EEEEEK….did I really relegate our customers to second priority?? It’s my bias to ignore external customers…I’ve never interfaced with them in any of my positions in this field.

So Gracie was pretty much a bad dog today. I’ve been writing about balanced scorecards recently…they not only facilitate assessment, but they provide a platform for improvement (in case you were wondering). If I were to create one for Gracie, it would look like this.

Our puppy is nearly 6 months old now and becoming less fearful of new things. She barks much more than she did at first. She will make a fine watchdog; she barks when she hears cars and people coming in. We're also working on teaching her not to nip us when she plays. She has sharp teeth!

So..I best hit the hay. My alarm goes off in 5 hours....and then it starts all over again.

8D

2011-09-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

So, I told myself no whiskey and no fun stuff until the proposal is submitted. Well, things fell apart last night. SOMEONE is on strike as far as dealing with the kids (life) so I stepped up and said, OK, I’ll do my fair share this weekend (yeah, I’m just that kind of mother). So, the girls had a “hot date” to meet boys at the movies last night. I dropped them off at the cinema and LIQUOR STORE became a driving force in my brain. I went on auto pilot – I stopped, walked in, and bought Makers Mark. They had no 80 proof Wild Turkey in stock…my second favorite. I usually buy turkey because it’s $10 less per bottle (there abouts). So I bought the expensive MM last night but had second thoughts and didn’t open it….

I’m a little bit ahead with my school work this week. I have a giant paper due Monday night, but Monday is a holiday and I have all day to throw it together. Tomorrow I’ll start on it, and I only have two more posts, and the dreaded reflection statement to write by Monday night. The posts are easy this week. Students had to post last week’s big paper in a public forum. We were encouraged to critique each others’ assessments for participation credit this week. Since we all wrote basically most of the same ideas, mainly we’re just exchanging BS source summaries. Today I wrote about such lovely things as balanced scorecard systems, logistics as it should be considered as a vital part of a fully-integrated supply chain system, and some blib-blab about OLAP versus qualitative research.

So, tonight I’m making up for some lost time this summer. My ugly mug is still recovering from Fluorouracil, and I’m still supposed to avoid sun until all the red is gone. It’s probably now 60% gone, and I hadn’t played any tennis since early July. The sky was completely overcast this evening, never mind the 96 degree heat and nearly 100% humidity. I woke SOMEONE up and said, “Let’s go play some tennis.” He jumped up like a 2-year-old….OK, maybe like a 5-year-old.

I am WAY out of practice. All my serves were going long. I was hitting sky balls and hitting the net top. Skill leaves quick, but it was fun. October 3rd is the last day of the last class. My golf clubs miss me. They need new grips. I should get that done NOW.

Right now, my piano misses me….and I miss Sarah. How lucky that technology allows me to hear her and see her whenever I desire….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCLumqxRcrI

(Karly Dawn and Sarah) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCLumqxRcrI

looking for adventure, or whatever comes my way

2011-09-02T13:19:00.000-07:00

I’ve been searching and looking at property again. That beautiful property on Kinniconnick is still available. It would be ideal if only it were about 30 minutes closer to home and the entire creek bottom didn’t flood. It’s beautiful there, but a flood plain is not the place for starting my dream orchard. I found 167 acres in Lawrence County, Kentucky priced at less than $800 per acre. It comes with no mineral rights which I think means a coal company could probably come in and destroy it if they wish. It is advertised as a hunter’s paradise because it hasn’t been hunted in over 3 years and it has bear, elk, wolves, bobcats, and beaver. Yes, it’s my dream to have a place to go get lost in the woods, but I don’t want to have to be looking over my shoulder to see if something is stalking me.

My first husband’s father has some beautiful property in Mason County, Kentucky. Woody (first husband) loved to hunt out there…he loved to hunt anywhere. I like to hike so I’d go with him for a chance to be in the great outdoors and to watch the dog(s) work. He and I had some real adventures in the woods. Once in Rowan County we got attacked by bats..I’m not really sure their intent was to attack us, but it was a group of bats and they kept swooping down on us - close enough to feel the wind from their wings and they chased us when we ran. Woody shot at them until he ran out of shells. Another time, we had been wandering lost for over an hour, it was dusk, and we were tired, hungry, and fretting about having to spend the night in the woods. Finally, we decided to climb the tallest hill and see if we could see a road or house before it got too dark. The hill was nearly vertical so it was a stuggle to climb it. We used the trees and scrub bushes to pull ourselves up, stopping frequently to rest by leaning our backs against the trees for support. Finally at the top and with just light enough to still see, we found the road and our car right on the other side of this crazy hill. If we had just kept following the creek on around it we would have been there. Climbing down was tedious too, but at least we knew we weren’t lost.

Now it’s the start of September, the locust trees are dropping yellowish leaves reminding me fall is just around the corner. Thanks to Labor Day, we have a three-day weekend. I appreciate the extra day off since I have to write a giant dreary paper for my class. I’m tired of this stuff…burnout is back. I’ve been telling myself no drinking or fun stuff until my proposal is submitted. It’s tough love….or something like that….probably love has anything at all to do with it. There’ll be no time to work on my proposal until this damn class is over. It really sucks being me sometimes. Will 100 acres be enough space to get away from myself? Maybe 100 acres, a bottle of whiskey, and whatever other fun stuff I can find. I need a long vacation away from me.

Arrogant JERK...maybe

2011-08-31T21:32:00.000-07:00

I was thinking all day about what an arrogant jerk the prof of my LAST CLASS is. Our class is small – 11 people and none have dropped out yet. People ask him questions and he never gives a straight answer, and he kind of puts a dig in to his responses. Anyway, I asked a question at the very beginning regarding something administrative and confusing on the syllabus. He gave me a smart-ass nonanswer, so I decided he won’t be getting any more questions from me.

One of the discussion questions due this week asked us about pitfalls IT managers should avoid. We were supposed to base the response on our own experience. One of the pitfalls I wrote about is something I’m dealing with at work right now. Of course, we can never just answer the question based on our own experience. I had to research and find a theoretical foundation for my response. Anyway, the issue is that my boss gives priority to the squeaky wheels and ignores the department managers who don’t ask for anything. Who can operate their business without IT in this world? NOBODY! This particular business manager has no strategy other than to let his local managers manage their IT. As a result, there’s chaos….it’s expensive, inefficient, no standards, and it’s putting the company at risk…seriously. Anyway, I talked to my boss and he says the man doesn’t want to hear it so it’s up to me to persuade him to adopt a more strategic approach. How persuaded would you be if management sent somebody 6 levels below you to tell you what you’re doing is wrong? Anyway, arrogant prof replied to my post and asked if I thought servant leadership could work as a solution. Well, first of all, that allows me to write up a quick answer because I’ve been researching servant leadership extensively for my dissertation. I’m required to write 6 reply posts per week to meet class participation requirements. Second of all….it’s made me think of a new approach to working with the guy. The real problem is the guy is overworked and always in the field. We are 5 hours apart in location so face-to-face meetings more than once or twice a year are impossible. The other issue is that I really don’t have time for him.

Other news….my face is getting better. It’s still red and I’ve got 4 big scabs left, but it’s better. Also, Gracie is getting good at playing fetch and Jack almost went outside today. He is a scaredy-cat. Something spooked him over a year ago and he rarely goes more than a few yards from an open door since then.

If you click on the picture, you see my animals up close! Blogger has made some worthy enhancements.

Our menagerie (Molly, Gracie, Jack)

Counting

2011-08-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

Today is the 28^th day of having this mess going on with my face and I’m damn sick of it. I’ve been hiding out as much as I can but Monday I’m going back to the office. This morning I took Gracie to the vet. I was grateful that nobody asked what the hell happened. They probably assume I’m an unfortunate accident victim. This is a picture I took yesterday.

27th day of hell

Gracie got her second set of puppy shots today and they tested her for various parasites – she got a clean bill of health other than a few small spots of mange. The vet says this kind of mange is common on puppies and most of them are free of it by the time they’re a year old. For now, we do nothing. If it gets worse, we give her pills and if it goes away, hooray.

I have a big paper due and I’m having trouble getting into it because one of the mandatory items to be covered is not clearly defined and I can’t relate it to anything. What are (exactly) IST domains of management? To me, that means everything IST managers must manage. We are to analyze a case study scenario and relate all the problems we find to IST domains of management, database, networking, Web, programming, and all scopes of systems development. Perhaps if a problem doesn’t fit neatly into one of the other areas, I’ll just lump it into the catch-all domains of management.

Five more big individual papers, one more team paper, six reflection statements, 15 discussion questions, 34 reply posts, and one dissertation, and THEN….I’M DONE!!!! I’m getting close enough to almost see the finish line and now someone is acting all pissy about the time I’m spending and how the house has fallen to ruin. Maybe someone is just in a pissy mood because of shit going on in his life. If misery loves company, we should be a match made in heaven.

Face disgrace

2011-08-21T07:06:00.000-07:00

I took another picture of my face yesterday, but I don’t want to post it. It’s too depressing. I look like an alligator who’s been blasted with a shot gun…sort of. Yesterday morning was the last dose of the flesh-eating chemical/drug. This morning I took a long warm shower and washed the last traces of the nasty, greasy stuff off my face as best I could – now it feels like if I smile my whole face would crack and shatter. Tomorrow I go back to the doctor and hopefully he will say I’m through and I pray he doesn’t want to touch anything on my face because if he does, it’ll probably hurt. Don’t touch! Back off, Jack! That would be fitting because his name really is Jack.

Our puppy is quickly growing; I’m lengthening her collar about every three days. She’s getting a bit more brave and troublesome. We have to gate her off or keep doors shut where there are plants, shoes, clothes, etc. She loves to chew and never mind that she has doggie toys to chew on, she loves nothing more than to grab one of the girls’ padded bras. It’s time for her next round of shots and I fear she’s probably got worms again. I won’t gross you out with the details, but her favorite food is not the puppy chow, but nasty stuff she finds in the woods. Here’s a photo of her being sweet and about the only time she is not getting into trouble:

Gracie

I took Gracie outside to “do her business” and discovered the apple tree had three squirrels in the top of it. Two jumped to the ground and ran across the yard escaping up the maple tree. The other held a large apple in his teeth by the stem, leapt over to the other apple tree (totally bare of apples), then over to the maple, then one more jump to the hickory. He sat there looking down at me, then began munching his apple. I ran for my camera and was able to grab a photo. A few nights ago, I took Gracie out at night and heard a deer thrashing the limbs of the apple tree. Then, thump, thump, thump of apples hitting the ground. I assumed the deer shook all the apples out of the trees, but now I know squirrels take their fair share.

Scary face

2011-08-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

My face is heavy on my mind these days. Today is Day 15 of a 21-day treatment plan with Fluorouracil on my face. It’s a scary drug! The doctor didn’t give me the whole truth about it, which is probably a good thing because I never would have agreed to this. I hate pictures of myself, but I will post one that I snapped off quickly at work the other day. My hair looks wretched because the heat and air from the hair dryer make my face hurt more, so I let it air dry and do whatever it wants. I can’t wear make-up. What my co-workers tell me is that my face seems to change from hour-to-hour; swelling some parts then unswelling, turning dark red then light red in some parts, bleeding off and on. Look how gross!!

I went to a dermatologist because I had a little place above my lip that came and went until finally it came and stayed. I had two other scaly patches on my face that have been coming and going. On the day of the appointment, the two patches were cleared up and normal. The doc took a quick look at my lip and said it was pre-cancerous. He could cut it or burn – both would leave a noticeable scar. OR…I could use Fluorouracil for 21 days and no scar. That seemed easy! I liked the idea of no cutting or needles. He told me about it and how it works, and how if I treated my whole face, it would be like getting new skin – undoing all the damage over the years. He said nothing would change for 14 days, then it would get red like a bad sunburn, scab up, peel, and heal. OK!! It’s only supposed to react with sun-damaged abnormal cells – sounded good.

I’ve never been one to lay in the sun for long and I’ve worn sunscreen since it was available. A few memorable burns, not as much on my face as on my back and shoulders. I’ve played a lot of golf, but since I was late 30s, I get migraines triggered by intense sun so I always wear a visor when I’m playing golf or tennis in the sun. Anyway, the place on my lip and one of the scaly patches reacted to the drug the first time I put it on. Based on pictures I’ve seen online, I’m at least a week ahead of schedule as far as gross appearance. The red and burning is way worse than any sunburn. It’s getting worse every day. It burns and itches like a mother! I got permission to work from home starting next week. I don’t plan to be seen in public until it’s somewhat healed up…at least no worse looking than the photo of me.

Playtime

2011-08-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today, I was thinking about being in kindergarten. We had a time block during the day when we could choose to play a particular activity. Boys had certain things they could do, and girls had certain activities they could do. Toys were grouped by activity and gender and we were forbidden to mix them. Boys could play with large cardboard blocks, small wooden blocks, trucks, or rubber animals. Girls had girly stuff – dolls, sewing cards, hand puppets, or a play house. Most girls chose to play house or dolls. The hand puppets were socks with buttons sewn on for eyes…really lame. The sewing cards were too easy, and boring after 5 minutes or so. Playing dolls in kindergarten with other girls was unappealing.

I usually played house because it was the least dreary of the choices. I usually amused myself by upsetting the other girls. One in particular, her name was Joni, was the world’s worst tattletale and a crybaby. It was easy to make her mad, and she almost always cried when she got mad. The play house had one large, ugly plastic doll in it. The doll had a plastic head with painted hair and painted blue eyes. She had a frozen smile and looked rather devilish. Perhaps that’s where I found inspiration. I did things such as tie her booties over her hands and put her clothes on backwards. That was all it took to upset Joni. Sometimes I put the doll in the toy oven, refrigerator, or washing machine.

One time, I popped off off the doll's arms and legs and discovered they were interchangeable...so I put arms where legs were supposed to go and fat, chubby legs where arms were supposed to go. I put it in the crib and covered it with the blanket. Joni found it and pitched a giant fit - she cried so loud the teacher felt obligated to investigate. I showed the teacher that the limbs were easy to put back in order, but she made me sit in the corner for the rest of the play period. The teacher made me apologize in front of the whole class. I told Joni, with much sincerity, how sorry I was that she cried. I took my seat and looked over at her. She stuck her tongue out at me. When I think of Joni, that’s the image that comes to mind – looking hateful with her tongue sticking out.

I never was one to play with dolls much. Sarah being an only child and sort of a loner (like her Mommy), always wanted me to play Barbies with her. There’s only so much an adult can do with a doll. I combed their hair, changed their clothes, and mostly just watched Sarah play. One time, she handed me two dressed Barbie dolls and asked me to swap their clothes. Ugh, really? I swapped their heads instead, but she didn't notice. I handed them back to her and she was stunned. As soon as she reasoned how I did it so quickly, she was furious with me. She was not happy with head transplantation.

Erin and Emily began playing with Barbies quite young, I wouldn’t let them have the little shoes or accessories because I thought they might choke on the little pieces. They were not quite coordinated enough and struggled to change their clothes. One time, Erin was sitting in front of me trying to get a Barbie out of tight-fitting pants. She said, “OH!! This is really pistering me off” and she chucked it across the room. It was funny but it made me feel bad to hear her imitate me (she no doubt heard me say the expression “pissing me off”).

Addition to the Family

2011-08-02T17:30:00.000-07:00

Vacation is over for 2011 – our traditional excursion to Myrtle Beach and all the things we do down there every year. I leased a Verizon air card for the second week because the beach house has no reliable Internet service. Last year, the air card was great. This year, performance totally sucked. S-L-O-W. Too slow. I will blame slow Internet for why I got no work done on my dissertation – it was all I could do to finish class work on time.

I did do some fun things on vacation, but mostly it was work for me. Last year we went on a little tour of plantations and islands south of Myrtle, leaving out of Georgetown. That was so nice, so we did it again this year. We got to see lots dolphins this time which was kind of neat. It rained a lot the last week we were there, but the last two days, the ocean waves were much less crashing (not so much knock-you-around type waves). There were sand bars so we went way out away from the shore before the water got very deep – it was nice to just swim around and float. Jerry and I were out there and we think a dolphin or a large black fish sort of jumped up out of the water no more than 15 feet from us. We both saw it and looked at each other like, “WOW!! DID YOU SEE THAT?” We didn’t tell the girls about it – they certainly would have assumed it was a shark.

A little beach friend

So while I was down there, I did call speak to Dr. Barbuto to request permission to use his (and Dr. Wheeler’s) survey for servant leadership. He graciously gave me permission and sent me a release to use it. These gentlemen are currently at the U of Nebraska. I called Mindgarden and purchased the “starter kit” for using their MLQ – a survey for transformational leadership developed by Bernard Bass. The starter kit has a manual and a non-reproducible sample of the instrument. When I know how big my sample size has to be, then I’ll know how much $$$ it’s going to cost me to use it. Researchers get a break on the price, fortunately.

My class ended last night and there’s a week off now until the next one starts. THE LAST ONE!! When I complete that class, I’ll be Dr. Me, ABD. Not impressive, all but dissertation. I don’t want to be ABD, but it will be nice not having all that busy work interfering with the important work, and the busy work has made me much more capable of doing a decent job of the important work…let’s hope it was NOT all for nothing.

We were supposed to get a puppy yesterday but the owners decided to keep it. Today, I was determined to find a puppy, so Erin and I went out to the Boyd County Animal Shelter. So many beautiful puppies needing homes, it was hard to choose. We chose this one, and Erin named her Gracie. The worker at the pound told us she was one of a large litter. She was different from all the others - they all looked like schnauzers, whereas she looks a bit more like a German Shepherd. All her siblings had been adopted out over a month ago. She has spent most of her life in a cage so she was a bit nervous to see the outside world and ride in a car. She seems smart and the kitties are getting to know her.

Gracie, about 3.5 months old

Poison

2011-07-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

Poison ivy. Yes, I have it again. Thanks for that, Molly. All I have to do is think about the damn stuff and I start to itch, so I know what it looks like and I stay clear. Molly, on the other hand, being a stupid cat, blunders through the woods and has no cares about poison ivy or poison oak or poison anything. Last week, she came in and jumped into my lap while I was trying to work. She doesn’t do this because she loves me, she merely wants to be fed. I was trying to work and ignored her. So she rubbed her head all over me, swished that plume tail all around in my face. I didn’t even think about poison ivy then, didn’t even enter my little pea brain. Now I have this wretched rash all over my face and neck and arms. It’s been over a week and it’s no better. The last three times I got poison ivy, I had to go get a steroid shot to make it go away. I’m about to give in and make that call...tomorrow if this crap is no better by then.

Feed me

The girls are reading a book over the summer for their English class, entitled Things Fall Apart. They both tell me it’s dreadful so I googled it and it’s a classic. Good for them! Read those classics. It’s kind of the way I feel lately with all this poison ivy and a sprained ankle from karate class last week. So now I’m gimpy and itchy and I just have no patience for this at all.

We’re going on vacation soon and I’m packing up all my work to take with us because I get a break from my job (hopefully..if I get no trouble calls) but I still have a class going on and I’m determined to finish Chapter 2 at the very least before I return from vacation. I emailed the gentlemen who developed the questionnaire I want to use to ask their permission to use it. They still haven't replied…..now I’m getting all antsy about that. I told myself I’m not drinking again until that proposal is written and submitted. Maybe that is the real cause of all this foul mood I’ve been in lately. Maybe I need to invest in a bottle of liquid patience.

Inception walking

2011-07-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

So, I haven’t blogged in a bit. It’s been busy, busy, busy all the time for me with schoolwork and all the stuff that’s going on in my life right now. I reread that last post. I apologize for it, but I am quite in awe of my ability to use the F word in so many forms in a single sentence – let’s see…adjective, verb, adverb, and …is that an object of preposition? Not that I should be proud of myself for that. When I was young and used bad language, I was made to write many, MANY times “I will not take the name of the Lord in vain.” Never mind that my foul language usually didn’t involve the Lord’s name at all. What good did that punishment do? None! Time, ink, and trees were wasted with those exercises. Typically, I wrote down the page I I I I , then will will will will, then not not not, etc. If I wrote the entire sentences out, I added (in my head) the F word in all the appropriate spots. I will (F’ing) not take the (F’ing) name of the …oh no…but I did… Maybe it’s why I have migraines all the time. It’s my punishment.

My brother has accepted that he will die from drinking and not be going to rehab. I saw him yesterday, he looks dreadful. He’s 6’6” tall and I’m sure he can’t weigh more than 130 pounds now - my big brother who I used to think was indestructible and as strong as a lion. I hugged him when I left because I’m afraid I won’t see him alive again. I feel guilty in so many ways…but that’s not for the blog.

I remembered another story about little girls’ panties! Actually…I think they were in diapers but they had ruffled panties over their diapers because they were wearing fancy, frilly dresses. This one can’t be kept anonymous because it involves two little girls between 2 and 3 years old. We took them to church one Sunday morning and dressed them up extra cute because the childrens’ Sunday school classes were going to each get up in front of the congregation and sing a song or two…I forget the occasion. Anyway, Jerry’s Mom had bought the girls frilly matching dresses and it was a warm day, so I put ruffled panties on them over their diapers instead of tights, and they wore lacy ruffled socks and little black patent Mary Jane shoes. Yes, they looked adorable. The kids all sat together in the front with their classes and Jerry and I sat near the back in our usual pew. One group of kids was up on stage doing their thing. They were obviously distracted by something happening in the front pew. These were kids about 8 to 10 years old and some stopped singing and started giggling. Then we saw some adults in the choir smiling and talking, and then the minister started grinning. I started looking between heads to see what was so funny up front. Well, wouldn’t you know, it was my girls. The preschool group was sitting in the front pew and I could see just the tops of their little heads, but here’s what I saw..head, head, head, head, feet, feet, head, head, head, etc. My girls had slid down in the pew and had their legs sticking straight up in the air giving everyone in the front of the church a full view of their legs and panties. They were quite oblivious to the distraction and disruption they were causing. Finally the preschool teacher got up, walked over, and made them sit back up in their seats. After church was over, I asked them what they were doing. Emily told me she and Erin were playing on the ceiling.

Erin - Spring, 1999

Emily - Spring, 1999

No title for you

2011-06-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Things have just gone to hell lately. No, I don’t want to write about it. I sure as hell don’t want to talk about it. The F word. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. Not in a good mood. Not in a good anything at all. It’s time to pull out one of my favorite Stephen King quotes and bastardize the meaning a bit…”sometimes an accident is an unhappy woman’s best friend.” I mean it in an entirely different way than it was used in the book. Time to quit thinking about F’ing stuff I don’t want to F with and F’ing get back to F’ing doing it because it sure the F isn’t going to do itself.

What are you so F'ing happy about???

ready or not

2011-06-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

I’ve had little enthusiasm for the current class, and I’m dreadfully far behind on the reading. The text books have been surprisingly interesting but I haven’t started the journal articles which are usually what I concentrate most on. Hopefully, this change in strategy isn’t a huge mistake. If the professor posts one more helpful hint, success tip, word of advice, or explanation of his grading rubric, I’m going to have a full blown panic attack or something. Just how much of an asshole does he plan to be? We already know the definition for a substantive post, how to count words, differences between APA version 5 and 6 , etc, etc, etc. Jeez Louise……enough already! Undeserving people have been passed through to this point; why penalize them now? They should have been dealt with years ago. I have to start writing this Sunday, ready or not.

I’m about out of panties stories, but I will mention that when little girls start dressing themselves, it’s not uncommon to find panties worn backwards or inside out. One child in particular used to love running around with little or no clothes on and her panties were nearly always on backwards. She really didn’t care. It would have driven me nuts to have a wedgie all day…but she was OK with it.

Fast forward. One day, I took girls shopping for bras. Bras are hard to fit so I insisted they try them on. One child was discussing how difficult it was to reach behind her to fasten the bra and why didn’t they just make bras fasten in front. I spoke up with motherly advice, “Well, simply fasten it in front, slide it around and stick your arms through the straps.” I assumed they’d seen me or a big sister do that, or at least seen it on TV, for heaven sakes! Other child says, “Oh, I always just do it like this!” She held the bra out in front of her, fastened it, then stepped into it pulling it all the way up over her hips. Um, yeah…good luck with that in a few years!

Sarah proud owner of her first horse, Banjo (Joey).

haircut alternative

2011-06-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

It’s too much running around this week…this whole DANG month has been too DANG busy. I hate when my calendar is so scheduled that I can’t even think about doing anything without consulting my calendar to see if I’m free. When did life become so F’ing complicated? I use that F word way too much. I think that should be the epitaph on my gravestone – “She F’ing died” – no, I don’t want a gravestone. I want to be cremated and my ashes dumped into the river or over a cliff….so it’s like I was never here. I F’ing don’t have time to plan a F’ing funeral and no relatives will have time to come anyway. I’ll be doing them a favor – they won’t have to reschedule their day to attend a funeral – one less complication and that’ll be my parting gift.

If I don’t find time to get a haircut soon….I think I’ll just light a match to it. I’m smiling. I actually did that once accidentally back in my college days – getting ready for a “hot date” and had my hair in rollers. I accidentally set one of the rollers on fire with a match. Long story…not appropriate blog material. I heard “crackle crackle” and started looking around, like, what the hell is that? “It sounds like something is burning,” I thought to myself. Then I realized it was my hair. PANIC! I patted it out with my hands and the roller fell to the floor. I ran to a mirror and saw my eyebrow was singed and there was frayed, singed hair where the roller had been. Yikes. More panic. What do you do when that happens? I parted my hair on the side and it wasn’t too noticeable. Valuable life lesson learned – carelessness has a price. By the way, I now know hair burns extraordinarily fast.

I have been writing about little girl panty stories…let me back up to the diaper stage. One of my little girls found her diaper to be especially useful for storing things. She used it like some people might use their pockets. When I changed her diaper, it was not at all unusual to find plastic animals, rocks, little Polly Pocket dolls, cookies, blocks, gummy snacks, or other assorted little toys in her diaper. Diapers are a bit bulky on a baby but sometimes these objects gave her a very unusual shape. Sometimes, I would pick her up to carry her and feel something hard and strange in her diaper…but with this child, it was always a few blocks or perhaps a plastic hippopotamus. I would change her diaper and tell her it’s not sanitary to eat from her diaper, but she’d just smile at me and look at me with giant eyes, and act all innocent.

bad influence

2011-06-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

I’m still dragging from a miserable headcold. Is this what old age does? You get a cold and it takes weeks to recover?

Erin got in from her trip at 2:30 Monday morning and called for a ride home. Jerry popped up and offered to go get her. Thank the Lord. I went back to sleep but as soon as they got in, Erin wanted to talk about her trip and I dozed off and on hearing bits and pieces about hot Australian boys and some New Zealand guy named Ryan. A 15-year-old girl remembers the whole trip in terms of boys and who said what. I’m certain she had fun which is the most important part, and she is talking about working hard next year so they can make it to internationals again. Internationals are in Indiana next year.

Another little girl story related to panties…as promised. The little girl in this story is about 6 years old. It was a dreary, rainy day and I was laying on my bed flipping channels half asleep while the little girl was in her room playing. I was watching MTV music videos when a spoof about Madonna’s birthday party came on. Madonna was opening presents and got lacy, crotchless-panties which she held up for the camera and made some sort of lewd comment. Honestly, I was in that zombie-zone where I would have watched anything that came on because changing the channel was too much effort. What I didn’t know was that my daughter was standing in the doorway watching too….I don’t know for how long. I hear, “Mommy, what are crotchless panties?” Instinctively, I grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. That was probably a major mistake - signaling inappropriateness. I stammered and explained very objectively, a description of panties without crotches. I saw her little wheels turning and she asked why that lady wanted those for her birthday. I didn’t come up with a good answer and I think I ended up saying some people think the lady is not very nice and the lady is in show-business so she likes to shock people and get attention with her clothes. Then I quickly changed the subject and suggested that since it was nearly HER birthday, we should go shopping for the new dress I promised her.

So no more talk of panties, we spent the day at the mall and she found a dress in a department store that was having a great sale. Unfortunately the lines were l-o-n-g. We waited in line for at least 20 minutes or so and when we were finally ready to check out, the clerk smiled at her and said, “This is a beautiful dress! It will look lovely on you. Did I hear you say this is your birthday present?” My daughter beamed and agreed that the dress did looked beautiful on her and told her she would be seven in a few days. The lady asked if she was going to have a party. My daughter said “Oh yes. I get a cake with flowers and my name on it so I can blow out the candles, and there’ll be presents that are a surprise.” The clerk said, “I love surprises. Do you hope you get a Barbie doll?” Now, there are two checkout lines at the counter, two clerks, people standing beside and behind us too. People all around us. Imagine this. My daughter says quite loudly, clearly, and very VERY seriously, “ Well, I think my Mommy is getting me some of those crotchless panties.” My mouth dropped open and I felt my face go red. The clerk’s eyebrows went up and her mouth dropped open. The two clerks looked at each other and the clerk looked back at her and said, “Well! Have a happy birthday and enjoy your dress.” She looked at me, handed me the bag, and smiled…and I was never so grateful to exit a store.

Pretty panties for pretty little girls

2011-06-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Little girls love pretty panties. I am a lucky woman to have raised three daughters from birth. A step-daughter came into my life when she was (I think) 9 years old – I’m terrible with numbers and dates, ask anyone who knows me. Children were much like space aliens to me when I first had one. My first child was a science project. Lucky for Katie that she was a girl. If she had been a stepson, it would have been like starting all over again and picking up in the middle at that! I can't imagine what sort of impression she would have got after meeting me.

So back to panties. It was always important to me that my girls have pretty panties. Why? When I was growing up, panties were strictly functional and were something never (supposed to be) seen. Plain, white cotton, fruit-of-the-looms were all I ever had. To make matters worse, when my great grandmother died (I was like 12 years old) – I inherited all her panties. Ever hear the term “granny panties?” They were like 2 sizes too big so I had enough big, baggy, saggy old panties to last me the rest of my life. It really wasn’t that big a deal except for gym class when I had to change clothes in front of other girls – of course they made fun of me. But, you know, my underwear was less humiliating than some of the other things they made of me about.

I won’t name any names because I don’t want to embarrass any girls…but….I will tell a few little girl panty stories in my blog. I picked up one of my little girls from "a place" when she was like 3 years old. She was wearing a sundress and had been sitting in the dirt playing with a tea-set and making mud pies and such. Her panties were nasty, caked with mud, and she had mud all over her legs and bare feet. I didn’t want all that mess in my car so I walked her over to the hose, stripped off her panties, raised her dress, and hosed her off from the waist down. She was a bit gleeful but also worried to get buckled into the car with no underwear on. I assured her we were going straight home and she could take a nice bubble bath as soon as we were home. We pulled into the driveway and our neighbors were having a party. Guests all over the front porch and the neighbor man called to my daughter because he loved talking to her and she was always a chatterbox. He asked her what she had been doing. She said, “Well, I’ve been playing in the dirt all day long and look *pulls up her dress in front of everyone* I’m not wearing any panties!” The people all got a good chuckle and the neighbor man, clearly embarrassed, said, “Wow, you’ve got some good air conditioning going on there!” I called to her to put her dress down but of course she wasn’t listening, so I ran out and pulled her dress down for her and told her to come along. However, this being the child that she was, “simply” coming along was not possible. No, not this one. She twirled in circles across the driveway, all the way to the door, which made her dress stand out like an open umbrella and gave everyone another show – a grand exit.

I have many more stories about panties but this post is long enough.

sickly

2011-06-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

It’s a dreary summer cold for me this week. I blew off school work last week and even went swimming in beautiful Grayson Lake with Erin and Jerry. What could be better than swimming with the fishes on a beautiful hot summer day? But I’m paying the price…still. I got sick that night and I’m still messed up.

I dragged myself into work Monday and survived the day. Tuesday night, I doped myself up good with all sorts of cold medicine and went to bed early. I never went to sleep though. My heart started pounding out of my chest. Major cold medicine buzz going. I layed there for over an hour and decided it was a huge waste of time to lay there waiting to sleep because obviously sleep was not in the cards for me. I sat up, flipped on the light and grabbed a text book. I sat there and read chapter after chapter of case studies on global ERP implementation successes and failures. Normally, less than one chapter would have put me into a deep coma. At 4:30 AM, I went downstairs and fired up my laptop. I sent my stand-in boss (copied my boss) a note telling him I was sick and would be missing work. I no more than hit the send key and he replied (and he copied my boss). Can you believe it? Young Mr. Stand-in Boss is really taking his job too seriously. My boss is on vacation. At 6:30 AM, my boss replied (copied my stand-in boss) reminding me to update this/that/the other in case of emergency since I’m off work sick. I hate bureaucracy. I am SO ready to retire from that place. When I am out of the office for any reason, I have 11 things I have to update to state my whereabouts. So, I update websites for 20 minutes with contact information when I’m going to run out of the building for even 10 minutes. STUPID!!!

So while I’m sick, I don’t sleep in the same bedroom with Jerry because he’s all paranoid about getting sick. It’s fine – he doesn’t wake me up with his snoring, he doesn’t steal my pillow, I don’t wake him up with my nightmares, and he’s not whining about me coughing or sneezing or breathing on him. We both sleep better. If he wanted to make it permanent, that would be OK. I’ve been sleeping in the little bedroom that used to be Emily’s, it’s painted a horrendous pepto-bismal pink color she picked out. The color is too dark for such a tiny room. It has fairy decals that I do like… it looks like a little girl’s room. I’m happy I had little girls.

Project-puppy is on hold. Erin is gone to Wisconsin for the International Future Problem Solving competition and she says we cannot get a puppy while she is gone. She will be back next week when hopefully my cold will be history. I’ve been leaving the door open to the little bedroom since I started sleeping in there…Molly makes herself at home in there.

more morbidity

2011-06-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

What am I doing here? Am I the only person who asks myself this question day in and day out?

My between-classes break started Tuesday and because of major MAJOR burnout lately, I’ve been taking a break from all school-related work (until tomorrow)…this is the second day of break. So, I went to bed early last night and watched some TV. I found a documentary on the right-to-die law in Oregon. That is the way to go! We need that law in Kentucky. I bet there are too many religious zealots in Kentucky to get a law like that passed. It should be a federal law so we can avoid the religious control freaks. The people who benefit from the law already know they’re going to die; it just gives them more freedom about when and where it happens. What’s wrong with that?? I watched my grandfather suffer the last year of his life. If he were a dog or cat, we would have had him put down humanely and peacefully. Why must we make humans suffer? If I have to move to Oregon, I’ll do it.

I don’t see a slow death from disease for me. I expect some sort of impact, explosion, or perhaps fire. It’s not how my preference would be, but what my imaginary crystal ball tells me…my destiny. I accept my destiny because what else can one do? Is there escape from destiny? In the news recently, a little girl, two-and-a-half years old, pulled a gun from a center console of her parents’ car while her mother was buckling her baby brother into his car seat. She accidentally shot herself in the face and died two hours later. I suppose the only grace in that death was that she immediately lost consciousness and never woke up. The mother said she heard the pop, looked up, and saw the little girl slumped in the front seat with the gun in her lap. What a horrible accident. What a horrible world where people keep loaded guns in their cars, and where the difference between life and death depends on a second of inattention. Who created a destiny like this for a little girl?

Maybe we will look for a puppy this weekend. I love dogs, but all that mess-making and chewing-up-everything is a pain. If we’re going to do it, now is the time with the girls home from school to help with house training and making the dog social. We got Chewy around Christmas and she spent much of her early puppy days alone, and at the mercy of mean neighbor kids who teased her terribly. Jack will “like” having a new playmate, I’m sure.

Jack

walls

2011-05-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

This is a view of the front of the high school I attended, before the wrecking ball took the last of it down. What a magnificent building it was in its day! Portsmouth High School. All the schools in Portsmouth were rebuilt, as if the new infrastructure would attract new business and revitalize the area. Certainly, having new schools can’t hurt, but business hasn’t come and crime is no better in that area of southern Ohio.

I finished my paper last night. It was a miserable piece of work. My heart was not into it at all. The carrot on the stick seems to be a bit rotten lately. The appeal is gone. Maybe I’m so burnt out I can’t see anything good anymore. Maybe it was that shitty team paper we did. That was horrible work and our grade reflected it. I hate being part of horrible work. Maybe more than everything else, the carrot is closer and it doesn’t look as good as it did when it was far away.

I liked school when I was a kid. My teachers were nice to me - even mean teachers were nice to me. My favorite teachers (and professors) were those who told stories. I don’t have any stories to tell..er…maybe that’s not true. The truth is I don’t like to talk about me. I guess I would have stories to tell if I talked about me…which is what they did. Hmmm….I’ll have to think about that.

plantin' and ramblin'

2011-05-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

I am rambling tonight. Writing a paper that should be easy, but I’m still planning and researching it. It’s good work. So, it’s about Procter & Gamble, my guesses as to how their SCM project with Walmart was planned, executed, and what lessons were learned from implementation. The professor’s last bullet point troubles me… I think it implies planned reorganization.

Anyway, weird things have been happening lately. Maybe it’s just too weird to put here.

Lightening bugs were out tonight. Those made me happy.

It was a lovely day today. Like 80 degrees, partly cloudy, light breeze, and sweet honeysuckle in the air all day. I took a break around noon - Jerry and me went to the driving range. We always get the party bucket, bunch ‘o balls to say the least. Our routine is for me to dump about a third of them in my favorite spot and Jerry takes the rest to the far end of the range. So I hit 80 or 90 balls, and use all my clubs. If I had to play golf with only one club..I would choose a 6-iron. Why? Because I’d rather have a 5 and a 7, those are really my favorites.

OK…enough golf. We also ran down to a little roadside place and bought some plants. We got tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and some flowers. I better quit blogging and go to bed. I have lots of work to do so I can make time to plant stuff.

daydreaming

2011-05-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

My kids have been reminding me all week that the world is supposed to end today. After three weeks of gloom and rain, the sun is finally shining here. The world could never end on a day like today.

I ran some errands on my lunch break today. I was sitting at a red light (the kind that stays red for half your lifetime) and watched a hawk flying. I love hawks – their feathers are beautiful and I like how they screech. Anyway, on such a perfect day like today, I thought to myself how nice it would be if I were a hawk and didn’t have to go to work anymore. It was a great daydream until I noticed the decals on the back window of the pickup truck in front of me. There were silhouettes of ducks, turkeys, and grouse with a message saying “If it flies, it dies.” Obviously a hunter owns that truck. I think hawks are protected in Kentucky…but that pretty much ruined my daydream.

Sandy Spears' lovely photo of a hawk in her garden

Rain is falling

2011-05-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

My sweet daughter, Emily, is now is Wisconsin for the National Science Olympiad , representing the most beautiful of the 50 states (in my humble opinion), Kentucky, and her school. They rode 14+ hours today and fortunately they were given a charter bus. I don’t want to imagine that ride on a crowded school bus. In a few weeks, Erin will make a similar trip to another city in Wisconsin for the International Future Problem Solving competition. She will be representing our Kentucky and her school.

Rain and more rain here. April showers bring May flowers, what do May showers bring? June bugs?

Check out my beautiful rhododendrons.

Blackberry

2011-05-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

So this is Friday. No big papers due this weekend…I can breathe a little…only five more posts to write by Monday. Dissertation work needs me.

Some heavy work-stuff happened this week. I walked the lake a few times to decompress and figured out what the sweet smell was. Wild cherries? Nope. Locust trees? No. Try blackberries. All in bloom now and the most delightful scent.

Blackberry

The little lake is dreadfully muddy after our recent monsoon. We got 5”-7.5” inches of rain measured around our little tri-state area in just under two hours. Flash floods were incredible and all the city’s sewers backed up. Several blocks were under 5 feet of water. On my walk today, I admired the blackberries and chanced to find a turtle like the one in my yard a week ago. Also, in the edge of the dammed side, a big old pond turtle was swimming along the surface.

Derby Day, 2011

2011-05-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend, the writing prompt is “two organizations that collaborate within or across industries.” I selected Wal-Mart and Proctor & Gamble because there are plenty of mentions of them in the literature. The reading has been interesting so far. The most striking thing I’ve learned is that RFID technology is still immature, not internationally standardized, and potentially unstable. It can handle pallet-level granularity but the real benefits of the technology lie in perfecting item-level granularity. The technology just doesn’t support item-level with an acceptable degree of reliability. I thought it was ready for prime-time, incorrectly so.

Jerry has been watching documentaries on the National Geographic Channel about 9/11 horrors. I walked into the room and got hooked with him. It makes me sad every time I see the loss of lives and destruction.

The family took me out to dinner today for Mother’s Day. We went today because tomorrow the restaurants around here will be jammed. I have no time to stand around waiting for a table. We went late afternoon for an early dinner. The first choice restaurant was a zoo, we drove on past. The second choice was not so crowded. We got seated right away and it was very nice to have dinner with Jerry and two of my sweet daughters.

Easter, 2011

Today was the hundred-and-something'th running of the Kentucky Derby. I picked Nehro to win, but he placed. No matter, the Kentucky Derby is something I hope to see in person some day. We plan to the take the girls to Keeneland in October. I love the race track and smell of horses.

Lettuce learn to be better farmers

2011-05-01T00:08:00.000-07:00

The lettuce…I didn’t thin it as I should have and now look at it!! The one on the right has done so much better than the one on the left. The only difference is that I had two separate packets of seeds. Same brand and variety bought at the same time – but look at the difference. Hmmm..that company might just have some quality issues. No matter, I’m pleased as pinecones to have lovely lettuce growing. I miss having time for my yard.

I worked hard all day today, didn’t submit my work until maybe 20 minutes ago (‘bout 2:15AM). A couple of times I strolled outside just to get some of the fine, spring air. It was cool today, low 70’s, and very clear, brilliant sunshine. A day like today makes me want that hill-land/farmland/lake/river/large creek property not too far from here *sigh*…*BIGGER SIGH***** I’ve planted an orchard many times over in my imagination.

But look here what surprised me today - a lily-of-the-valley. Delightful and sad at the same time. I think of Chewy everytime I see a lily-of-the-valley. I planted 80-some of them in a bed. Chewy was in her digging stage, dug them all up and ate a good lot of them. I found a few in the yard, replanted them, and fenced the bed. Chewy got them again and I gave up on them. But today, this in all its glory!

Tomorrow is another day. My team assignment is done (hopefully, other than filling in whatever needs doing with the final version. So tomorrow, my goal is to write four posts and submit two tomorrow (oops..today) and two on Monday. I better get to bed...wake-up time is fast approaching.

Visitor

2011-04-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

No whiskey in the house tonight…sadly. I took some time to make love to my guitar tonight…I’ve been away from it too long. Much too long. I was missing Sarah so I went out to YouTube and viewed Keeping the Fire Warm. That was enough to inspire me to play it. Sarah (playing banjo in that video) started singing almost as soon as she started talking. I miss having her music in the house (except for those bagpipes...no regrets when those were abandoned). Emily and Erin play music too. I am blessed with creative and talented children.

This little guy visited our yard the other day. He might have been hibernating in our ivy for the winter.

Tomorrow, my goals are to complete my team assignment - first draft and submit, and write two posts. The team assignment is not bad - my part is to write 3-5 annotated bibliographies and do a detailed outline on WebERP, and ERP emplementation, customization, and complexities. Not bad IF everyone does their part of the whole assignment. There are only 3 people on my team, the other teams have 4. Still, I think we have a very capable team.

Two response posts tomorrow and two Sunday on: unrealistic client expectations, what top management commitment really means, evaluation of intangible benefits, and lack of client preparation. If I blink, it will be Monday morning.

Dicentra spectabilis

2011-04-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

A “higher up” forwarded an email with a link to an article about employees’ ever-increasing requests and demands to access the corporate network from personal mobile devices. Some corporations are experimenting with strategies to make mobile device communication work securely – arguably a long-term challenge. The “higher” made a sarcastic comment, insinuating the masses would prefer to never be obligated to work from personal mobile devices. That is SUCH an arrogant attitude, but no matter. I predict that before Generation Y is able to retire, the model for corporate organization structure is going to be much flatter and more networked.

The younger generations have information at their fingertips from the time they are born, potentially even before they are born considering the miracles of modern medical science. Look at the baby toys these days – electronic rattles that light up when moved, movies designed for ages 3-months old and up, toddler education software, public preschool kids begin computer literacy training. Think about how much we middle-agers depend on our Internet, wireless, mobile phones, wi-fi, blue-tooth, etc. The younger folks miss it more than we do when it’s unavailable. At least we old folks can force ourselves to revert back, do things the hard way, or make do until services are restored. It’s very inconvenient, but survivable. The younger generations are lost and in virtual panic-mode when they want it and can’t have it (technology).

The real solution here is to somehow implant communication-enabling electronics directly into a person’s body somehow unobtrusively and hopefully painlessly. That would be pretty dang creepy! Might make a good movie.

Look at this – a neglected bleeding heart.

Old-Fashioned Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis)

I'm not sure why I like bleeding hearts so much. They are dainty and look like pink hearts, sort of. Their leaves remind me of hands. They have no noticeable scent, but I like them. When my dissertation is done, rebuilding my gardens is going to be FUN!!

Tied down

2011-04-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'm dragging a heavy weight around. Erin drew this picture of me. What can I say? RRRRRR. You can click on it to make it bigger.

F'ing

2011-04-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

What is the big F’ing deal with me? I took the whole F’ing day off work to write and I have not written a single word! Jerry came home early today and cut the grass. I used that for an excuse to take a break, went outside and layed on the driveway in the sun like I was nailed to a cross, actually had fantasies that maybe he might just jump in the car and back right over me…put me out of my misery. I deserve to die today. I only HAVE to write 22 more pages to meet the minimum requirement. Maybe a really good killer hangover would get me in the mood to finish this F’ing thing.

Maybe I’m just lazy. Maybe it’s burnout. Definitely burnout is a component. Maybe it’s spring fever. It’s a perfect day today – clear, sunny, 70’s, everything in bloom – and here I am back in front of my laptop wishing this damn thing would write itself.

All right, I have two more hours to get something done on this before I switch to writing shit for my class. I have to write a response and two posts tonight…and then I’m cracking open the whisky bottle…well…maybe. Maybe that will be my motivation to finish chapter 2 – THEN crack open the whisky bottle.

Lilac - smells like heaven

Faithful Pest

2011-04-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

Molly - faithful mousespace hog

I love having two monitors but it takes up Molly's space. Now I have to deal with that tail and her habit of knocking my mouse and ink pen off the table. Not to mention how inconvenient to have her on my notes all the time.

Selective abortion

2011-04-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

So tonight – I broadened my horizons. A brand new HP monitor – MY new assistant – extended display!!! The gift of space... I like space. It’s serious business come Monday morning. This new monitor is a technology investment to get me where I need to be by Friday, 6:00 PM. My most serious goal is the complete draft of Chapter 2 by then.

Today, I read some interesting stuff about rich media communication, the premises of transaction cost theory, open source ERP advantages (nobody mentions any disadvantages), and collaboration pros and cons regarding multinational alliances. Oh yes, and onshoring/offshoring/nearshoring decision factors. I noticed our big paper prompts are less-defined and the required word count is longer.

Hmmmmm….that can only mean we have more rope to hang ourselves.

I stepped out back to check on my lettuce and feel all so neglectful. It has grown and must be thinned immediately. I stood and plucked lettuce seedlings for 20 minutes. I still have WAY too many – look at these poor things. It makes me think of selective abortion. I indiscriminately rip them out by the roots and throw them into the yard below. Think of Dr. Mengele, deciding who will die now and who will die later. Man\Woman has domination over the plants and animals...mostly.

So, Friday, I lost my patience in the afternoon and went for a quick walk around the lake behind our building. I snapped some photos of dogwoods. They are all in bloom now, with the lilacs and redbuds. The hills are alive again. I love spring time in Kentucky.

spontaneous combustion

2011-04-15T07:10:00.000-07:00

Fridays are the worst day of the week for me, even more so than Mondays most of the time. It makes no sense whatsoever. I should be working now and I haven’t been able to get started yet. By the time Friday rolls around, I’m ready to blow a gasket. Maybe I have a mechanical integrity issue in my brain. They remodeled our offices, took away our walls and doors and gave us cubes with 5 foot sides and no doors. Now we hear everything each other says and does. By Friday, every last cough, sneeze, paper shuffle, phone ring, apple crunch, and drawer rummage noise sets me off. By noon, I’m wild enough to shoot, and by 2:00 I find myself pacing…as much as one can pace in a 6X6 square box. Fridays should give me all the motivation I need to finish my dissertation and graduate. I gotta get out of this place before I kill somebody (me?). Right now, I want to be Chief Broom in One Flew Over the Cuckcoo’s Nest – at the end of the movie he throws a desk (or something big like that) through a window and escapes. That should be me. Sometimes I think about crashing through my window and running off into the woods, disappearing forever…of course, there’s no need to break the window…I can just use the doors and windows like a normal person.

When Sarah was little, I used to tell her that if she left too many toys on the floor, it could cause spontaneous combustion and not only would all her toys be incinerated, but our whole house might burn to the ground. That motivated her to pick her toys up and put them back on the shelf. The truth is, maybe all those toys in my way were going to cause me to combust spontaneously…kind of like Fridays in my 6X6 cube/prison cell at work.

lettuce babies

2011-04-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

I knocked off work a bit ago. The stuff I read today – ugh. The Galliers text sucked every last ounce of enthusiasm right out of me. At least that concluded the biggest chunk of text material – 19 chapters from four text books. Now I do a bunch of journal articles. So far, everything is about strategic alliances, mergers, partnerships, and acquisitions. More man-made crap.

Anyway, today felt like summer here. Mostly sunny and mid-80s. Whoa!! I had to get out and get some of it. Jerry and I went to the driving range. This time, I left my old woods in the garage. I’m moving on to the new clubs. I’m still uncertain about that 3-wood after hitting it more today. I don’t like how it flexes – the shaft flexes differently than the old club. I will have to change my swing to suit that new club. Is that a good thing to do?? Undecided.

The lettuce I planted on the back porch is growing. Yes, I over-planted it. The seeds were fine and I couldn’t really tell where they were going. I think they’re supposed to be 1-2 inches apart…been thinning them. I hope snails don’t find them…or those damn Japanese beetles that eat everything up. How come birds won’t eat those bugs? Maybe it’s God’s way of saying obese birds are not a good idea.

Demystifying the Holy Grail

2011-04-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

I recently read about procrastination – I am procrastination personified and unparalleled, unfortunately for me. So, now I have a much better understanding about what and why. The probem is I still have no clear idea about how to stop.

I finished off a text tonight and started the next, authored by Katz. The intro was easy reading, but the first section title caused me to freeze: “Demystifying high productivity.” High productivity is the secret to success in this world, and I stopped reading! Is that like Jesus himself handing me the Holy Grail and me saying, “Oh, no thank you, I’m not thirsty.”

Anyway, today was a low productivity day for me. I resolved a few minor cases, stirred up a few things, and wrote documentation the rest of the day. Tomorrow I gotta kick it in gear, get stuff closed out and accounted for.

The morning was clear and sunny. My corn plant that bloomed a while back still has a green stalk. It drips sap all the time. I have a shedding poinsettia underneath and my poor African violet catches the drips. If you look close at the photos, you can see – it looks like water. My violet is awesome!

So well, I've been making a plan to create time to work on my dissertation stuff. Instead of a couple of whole days, I'm going to take 4 mornings off work. Morning is my most productive time. That'll be 5 hours of dissertation work, 4 hours of career, then course work until I collapse for the night. That's for 4 days, then the fifth day is a holiday for me - Good Friday. I can do dissertation-work all day...but I am going to do something fun that day I hope. At least go to the driving range for an hour. Weekends all go for coursework.

Well, speaking of work reminds me I better get back to it.

spring in KY

2011-04-06T21:24:00.000-07:00

IST721 started Tuesday. So far, I’ve “read” six chapters of one text. This book is all about ERP systems and business processes. It’s good stuff to know.

Work was a bit less hectic than usual today. Too many sit-in-passively meetings for me today – we do too much of that in my company. My projects are falling behind schedule because all discretionary time is getting sucked back into the Minnesota assets separation deal. It feels like beating a dead horse. There’s far too much of that in my company as well. I am more than ready to hand off but they want more handholding.

On a happier note, it was a lovely spring day here today. Violets are blooming and the maple trees have fringes of green. Springtime in Kentucky is heaven. We will have redbuds in bloom soon *slobber…love ‘em*

I knocked off work on-time today so Jerry and I could play tennis for an hour. We have fun volleying the ball. Sometimes we play games, but Jerry usually wins – what’s the point? He’s played on a league for years whereas I don’t play through the winter months (we rarely rent an indoor court) and don't play on a regular schedule. Warm weather makes me think of golf and tennis, and springtime here in heaven.

Our Chewy, sadly missed.

blowing it off

2011-04-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

Well now.

It’s a turkey night, springtime in Kentucky. It’s self-reported heaven here. Today was sunny, breezy, about 65F-70F. I tried to work and failed.

Jerry and I went to the driving range. He gifted me with 3 new woods this past Christmas. The driver has a head on it the size of Canada! The sweet spot is as big as Ohio. I can hit some amazing drives with it – and that is what makes golf fun. The new 3 has less loft than my old 3-wood. I really like my old 3-wood though; not so sure about the new one’s benefits. The 5-wood is going to be useful. I can’t hit it consistently yet, but I have better distance with it than my 3-iron. Someday I will be playing golf again – the way I want to. I used to be a decent golfer.

I do want to do well in my program. Why didn’t I write today? I blew it off 100 times. Much of the day was spent in more research – trying to see if Frederick Taylor had some impact on occupational safety. Wouldn’t you think his focus on efficient production might have influenced safety systems? I found nothing interesting. Not true. I stumbled across an article about whistleblowing and organizational citizenship behavior. Now that’s an interesting topic! Taylor’s impact on occupational safety?? Apparently, nobody has given that enough thought to publish about it.

But then I planted some lettuce and a pineapple.

The girls have spring break now for the week. It means I can sleep in and stay up later. Sleep in, means…..I set the clock for 6:30 AM. It means…hmmmmmmmmm.

Road Kill

2011-04-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve been looking at puppies tonight at Petfinder.com

I love animals but whew…the trouble! Being tied down….which makes me laugh! Tied down? If I were a pirate, instead of a wooden peg leg, I would have a giant iron Popeye anchor for a leg.

But not today. I was a nomad today – traveled across the beautiful state of Kentucky to Louisville, then went into Southern Indiana to visit Kiko. She has a sweet little pug. I saw photos of Kiko’s pug when it was very young. It was cute, but I’m not so fond of that smashed-face look. Persian cats have it too. Anyway, I miss Chewy and having a dog around. Chewie was such a good dog. Very gentle with her family but very protective of us too. So much so, that I locked her up when I knew people were coming she didn’t know. She scared people.

Traffic in Louisville is heavy; it’s why I like living in a small town. We spend enough time getting from point A to B; I spend too much time sitting – PERIOD! The road trip going and coming home were uneventful. I saw lots of road kill – coyote, skunk, deer, fox, raccoons, possums, dogs, cats, and something I swear looked like a bobcat (in Greenup County). I also saw a flock of live turkeys off the Industrial Parkway and a small herd of deer (maybe six of them). I very nearly had a hawk hit my windshield – quite scary! I was on the Interstate and he flew across the road from the right side. I was in the left lane with a pickup truck on the right side of me. The hawk flew in front of the truck and then started across in front of me and turned upward just in time. He would have hit fairly squarely in the center of the front windshield. Emily was in the front passenger seat but she was asleep.

So 7 hours in a minivan today with two 15-year-olds girls. My little girls are growing up!

They love scary stuff - scary movies and anything haunted. Everytime we passed some old house, old school, or old barn, I heard "Oh! That place is haunted." We talked about stuff at Akiko's house and Michelle suggested I should take them to the Waverly Hills Sanitorium. I just might do that!