There are limits...

Yesterday I found I had reached my limit. I knew I had all sorts of limits such as physical strength, musical abilities (conducting the Messiah), and intellect but I had never hit my BS limit (or BH for bull honkey as the girls called it when they were young). Since I have spent 20 years (and several years before that in school) writing a great deal about topics that I don’t really know anything about, I thought that perhaps my capacity for BH was unlimited. It isn’t.

I had to do a training topic on entering an expense report in the system at work. I had a copy of the topic that was pretty close to correct to use as a guide. By about 3 p.m. I was completely lost. I had reached my limit. It didn’t help that at about 1 p.m. my application crashed and I lost the entire morning’s worth of work so I had to start over. This application is a little flakey and you have to save often which I had forgotten having not used it for a while. After I went to the Ladies Room and cried I came back and bravely started over. I recaptured my work fairly quickly. Then I hit the wall.

I persevered in my very best BH fashion, but by 9 p.m. I was mentally (and physically) exhausted so I headed home not having finished and not convinced I could finish. It was disheartening to realize that even my capacity for BH upon which I have built a career has its limits.

I headed to work early today determined to conquer or die trying. I am proud to say that I did send off a complete topic of BH to be reviewed. I believe it will be ripped to shreds by the reviewers but at least I finished it. I guess we can add Queen of BH to my other title of Funk Master!

Save the Quilts (whales are on their own...)

Recently when my mom and dad came to visit we spent an afternoon "bummin' " (as mom calls it) around some antique stores. I have been very good about not acquiring any more "junk" (as everyone in my family calls it) since I did the giant giveaway of everything that won't fit in my tragically small house.

In fact, I think I have only bought one antique since then and it was on a trip with my mom and dad. It was a really good thing however and I had to have it as you can see!

Obviously I need to stay away from them because while we were bummin', I saw a lot of things that I wanted to buy but I was very good and didn't buy any of them except for this one quilt. I don't know why I couldn't pass it up. I passed up so many other wonderful and beautiful things. Maybe it was that the backing was an old flannel blanket that reminded me of the blankets that used to be on the twin beds in the American Fork house (see previous post). Maybe it was because there were some incredibly cool fabrics in it and also some incredibly ugly ones. Maybe it was because it was so dirty and falling apart that I just wanted to wash its face and wipe its runny nose.

For whatever reason, I took it home. Gary was appalled by how dirty it was and told me I couldn't sit on the bed to work on it because he didn't want to get cooties. He was certain I would get lock jaw or some dreadful disease from it. And I may have if I hadn't found the giant rusty open safety pin that was sewn inside it before I stepped on it. But, I sewed up all the holes and even made him help me inspect it to make sure I got all of them. Then I put it in the tub to wash it.

OK, the first wash cycle was absolutely disgusting! The water was the color of "brown juice" (a family color produced when you mix all the leftover juice/kool-aid drinks together in one pitcher in the fridge). There was actual dirt residue left on the bottom of the tub. The second wash cycle was definitely better but still very colored with a little less residue.The third cycle was much better and the two rinses were almost clear. Of course it has many stains but it has definitely been given a new life and you could actually use it without fear of disease. Even Gary agreed that it didn't smell too much anymore. So I guess it has found a home in my stack of old quilts. Please just keep me from bringing home any more strays!

The Empty Nest

Since we have lived in this house (about 5 years now) we have had several sets of birds attempt to nest on or near our house. The hummingbirds in the bush by our front door were successful once and we had 3 baby hummingbirds grow to maturity. The doves that tried 3 times were never successful. They built a "nest" on a small cap on one of our front porch pillars. The "nest" they built was maybe 10 sticks randomly placed on the cap. It obviously was not sufficient to hold the eggs on the cap and they rolled off onto the porch every time. Finally we put something on the cap to keep them from building there so they tried a different cap with the same result. I felt bad for the dove parents but also could not believe how stupid they were.

This year, different birds (we think they may be cardinals although not red) built an actual nest (nest shaped with all sorts of stuff holding it together) on one of the caps and successfully raised 4 baby birds. There were several interesting things about watching it happen from day to day.

First, the mother made a clicking noise when she approached with food and the babies heads popped up with beaks wide open at the sound. Our front door makes a similar noise when it opens so when we opened the door, the heads also popped up beaks open every time. They had amazing instincts.

Second, the mother was very protective (as all mothers are) and made different sounds when we were out and about to warn the babies to stay down in the nest and they did. She also dived at us if we got too close. It was the one time I wished I could talk to animals to explain to the mother that we would not harm the babies and that we lived there too.

Third, the babies were hatched, fed, grew and flew away all within a matter of about 3 weeks! They were literally bigger everyday and were gone before we knew it. They hung around the yard for a few days after they left the nest but then they were gone and all we have left is the nest (and massive amounts of poop).

I guess it made me think about my own empty nest and how quickly my 4 beautiful babies were gone. I guess I am still coming to grips with being an empty nester. There are definitely times when I long to hear the house filled with children's voices, help with homework, do laundry so there are clothes for school, and call everyone in from play for dinner. Unfortunately during those brief years it didn't seem so enjoyable most of the time. More often than not I felt like the nervous mother bird just trying to keep the babies safe, keep them fed and keep intruders away. I rarely enjoyed the growing, fun, and happiness that happened in the nest. And as all mothers do, I hope my girls will be better at this than I was.

Wait! Hold the bulldozer!

It may not be time to bring in the bulldozer and close the landfill. I'm not sure. I may have more to contribute. This certainly belongs in a landfill which is where my wallet will probably end up after it was taken from my purse on Saturday while it was still on my shoulder. By the time I noticed it (as I was attempting to pay for a cart-full of stuff at Wal-Mart with angry customers in line behind me) they had already maxed out all of my credit cards.

The thing about it is that, if you are like me anyway, you can't really remember everything that was in your wallet. And you don't have all the store credit card numbers recorded anywhere because you are stupid. So you hope you cancelled everything. And you are without any sort of credit or debit cards for the next 2 weeks. Try it sometime. It isn't easy to work strictly in cash.

And for an update on my broken toe...it is still not healed. I am on the 4th set of "it usually takes about 6 weeks to heal." I think the doctor must have meant 6 months. At least it doesn't hurt anymore.

And finally, you may wonder why I am posting now. Well, it is 2:40 a.m. and I woke up with a bad dream and can't go back to sleep. And all the ads on TV are about male enhancement! UGH! I don't seem to be doing very well of late in so many ways... Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Let's see, I have to go to a shrink appointment and to go visiting teaching and to go to the credit union to make a statement about my wallet being stolen and to talk to the police and do a full day at the office. Yes, it's bound to be a good day, don't you think?