Life

I decided my life needs some changes. Most especially in the area of work. I came home last Friday feeling like someone had punched me in the chest, it was sore and tight and I felt like I almost couldn't breathe. (Hmm...borderline panic attack anyone?) I ended up crying and freaking out my husband. I'm not going to go into the details about why work sucks so bad but suffice it to say that I have not particularly liked my job for about 4.5 years of the over 5 I've worked here. I've gone through periods where I've been ok with it and periods where I couldn't stand it but I have stuck in there because it is, after all, an office job in a small tourist town with limited job opportunities and it has benefits. Saturday morning Denny and I had a talk about what I needed to do. He thinks I should take classes at the local community college in book-keeping and advocated quitting this job and being a barista at a local coffee shop where two of my sisters work while I tried to get book-keeping experience. I took Accounting 1&2 quite a while ago. (I was thinking, "6 or 7 years ago, but no it was longer than that, let's see I was living in that place which was right after that so !HOLY COW! it was 9 years ago!") I really liked those classes and would like to get into that and I see ads for bookkeepers all the time so I'm thinking that's the direction I want to go. I also want to learn Microsoft Access since I often see ads that say you need that. However, I have to really sit down with my husband and talk about the reality of me making less money than I am right now (pittance that it is) and how things will work. Of course, if he could be unemployed for 3.5 years I think we can deal with this. To be fair he had his retirement income and VA disability so things were tight but the bills still got paid. I'm so excited at the thought of quitting here that I feel lighter and my mood (rather depressed and dark the last few weeks) has instantly improved. Yet at the same time there is that scared nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I haven't reinvented myself since I took a one year leave of absence from college that has somehow now stretched to 10!

The Superbowl

Since I am from the Northwest I am, of course, a Seahawks fan. I know you can go anywhere on the web today and read about how the team was screwed over by the refs. And I'll have to agree that the reffing sucked. However, I think it should also be pointed out the Hawks screwed themselves over too. Jerramy Stevens couldn't seem to get ahold of the ball no matter how many times it was thrown to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he scored a touch down but he dropped the frickin' ball way more times than he scored. He needed a little superglue help or something. And the other guy (sorry I'm not enough of a fan to remember who it was) caught the ball out of bounds in the endzone not once (mistakes can happen to anyone) but twice! In order to win something as big as the Superbowl a team has to step up and I just didn't feel like the Seahawks did it yesterday the way they did in the NFC championship game.

Also, the commercials were kind of boring this year. There were a few funny ones but overall...blah. And the half time show was kind of lame. I like the Rolling Stones and their music. But they seemed like they were just pretending to be energized and having fun. It really felt like a "just making a quick buck" moment. I'd have preferred Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson and the "wardrobe malfunction" because it seemed more like they were putting their hearts into it. And I don't even care for their music! My favorite thing I've read all day is at http://mikezellers.com/blog2/.

"Syriana"

My husband and I went and saw "Syriana" Saturday night. I was underwhelmed. Maybe it was a little bit that I only had 6 hours of sleep Friday night (I'm a 8-10 kind of girl) but I actually fell asleep sort of at the middle end. However, I'm pretty sure that if the movie had been engaging I would not have napped. My husband's comment was the story could have been told in a lot less time. One review I read said you came out of it confused but even though I missed some crucial bits (and it really was told in different "bits" rather like a book of short stories that are all connected) it still made sense, though I had to ask Denny a few questions. In summary:I did not care for the movie and wouldn't recommend that anyone pay the $8-12 it costs to see it in the theater. Also, I can state with certainty that George Clooney looks much much much better without the beard.

Good Advice

And by good advice I don't mean something I've heard from someone else. I've always been free with my advice for others. I recognized when I was in college (or maybe some time shortly thereafter) that it is always easier to see someone else's life clearly and to know what they should do. It is so hard to see our own lives that clearly. I think that's why we have friends, so they can tell us the things we need to do. Does all that make sense?

So, I have a friend who is dear and sweet and is prone to jump into situations feet first without really thinking of all the ramifications. Delly is the woman who offered to give free massages to a random stranger (male) that she met at the grocery store. I'm the one who said, "NO, you are not inviting him into your home." And it turned out that he was a little creepy and wanted "special" massages. She is also the one who told me about meeting some guy on the internet and things progressing to phone calls and how she figured the next step was for him to send her a plane ticket to visit him in Texas. And I said, "HELL NO!! If he wants to see you he can get his butt up here but you do not go somewhere where you don't know anyone and you are vulnerable." She decided there just wasn't any chemistry there anyway.

What to say when she announced that she is engaged to her ex-partner (of 15 or more years) who she finally got completely out of her life a month ago? They were super co-dependant and have been broken up for more than a year. Suddenly, "He's changed, he has a real relationship with God, he has a job." His job is day-trading on the internet. I consider that a quick path to not having any money. I'm sure my face betrayed most of my thoughts but all I said was, "I just want you to be happy." And I got grief from another friend for not being supportive enough. So when she called me last night to say that they were thinking of getting married in a hurry before he had to fly to Hawaii because he was worried about the plane crashing or something I was a little stunned and didn't know what to say.

I woke up in the middle of the night just knowing that it was a super bad idea and trying to figure whether or what to say to her. Luckily by the time I called her that idea had been thrown out. Luckily also that she values my honesty and isn't offended easily.

But this whole story leads me to the question: How do you know when you should and shouldn't say something to someone? I've led my life thus far mostly just popping off. I'll admit that I'm kind of a loud mouth and my secret dream is to have my own advice column or, better yet, a talk show called "Common Sense According to Heaven." But maybe I need to be more circumspect instead just being the negative doomsayer that I feel like lately. After all, no one liked Cassandra much. Granted she was telling the future (if I remember the story right) and I'm just telling people my views but I think there are some similarities. I haven't reached any conclusions yet other than I probably need to keep my mouth shut more often.

Killer Bunnies blah, blah, blah

My sister Nana bought a game for the family to play. It was called "Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot." We tried to play it last night. The lady at the game store said, "It's a little complicated and takes a little bit to learn but it is really fun." It took 25 minutes just to read 2/3 of the direction booklet (yes booklet not sheet) out loud to the 8 players. We still didn't know how to play and Matt quit and Ryan arrived and took his place. We started anyway without bothering to tell Ryan the directions because really, we were as lost as he was. After one round Maggie quit because she had somewhere else to be (and if she'd been having fun I bet she would have put that other thing off) and Richard arrived to take her place. After 2 rounds my niece wasn't playing but my sister Maha played for her for another few rounds before my niece actually left the table to go read Harry Potter in the other room. A round or two after that Nana and Dan were whispering to each other about just sweeping all the cards off of the table. That's when we quit. Nana said she hated the game so much she would rather play Monopoloy which we don't play in my family because...it's just not pretty when we do! So, out of ten people involved ten people hated it. Maybe that's too strong a word but the feelings ranged from outright hatred to dislike to complete disinterest. But no one said, "Let's keep playing!" or "Maybe we should try it again." Nana said, "Even if the lady at the store won't exchange it or give me my money back I'm going to just give it to her because this is the worst game I've ever tried."

State of the Union

I'm going to write about the president's State of the Union speech without having actually watched or listened to it. Why didn't I watch it? Well, we don't get tv reception at my house and I haven't really felt like paying for cable or satellite. Also it was family game night at my house with 10 people over for dinner and games. And I just knew that the speech would go something like this, "It's all about 9/11. We're winning the war on terror (9/11). There's nothing wrong with a little domestic spying because 9/11. Things are going great in Iraq, we're winning." And from what I was told last night (my brother-in-law went home after dropping off my sister and niece to watch the speech and then came back) I wasn't far off. And the commentators I heard on NPR (yes, that hotbed of liberal unpatriotic commies) this morning said the speech was pretty formulaic and he didn't say anything new. So, I'm not really sorry I missed it. Last year I called my sister half way through because I was hollering at the tv screen. She was too and I think our husbands might have been a little annoyed with us while they tried to actually listen. That would be the 4th reason for me not to watch this year--watching is bad for my blood pressure!

A Comment!!

So, I had pretty much figured that this blog was solely for my own satisfaction, like the diary that I used to write in. That's probably why I only write so sporadically because I haven't written in an actual diary in over 6 years. Somehow, it was easier when life was turbulent and there were traumas in my love life. But when life got stable and I had a great boyfriend (now husband) there just wasn't much angst to write about. However, imagine my excitement to get my first comment ever. It was almost like Christmas! Maybe it's a vanity to know that someone is really reading my blog. Maybe I'll actually try to write more. Maybe...yeah I can't think of another one.