New Paths

I'm on a new path, I think ...... working on a plan to move into the next phase of my "never retire, just downgrade" career path. I like working at my job, the people are nice, the work is challenging, and it pays well. Yet, something about the hubby being at home full time and me being away from him for 12-13 hours a day, then home for 2 hours, and then to sleep leaves something to be desired. So ...... the next phase is to find a job 1) where I can really work just 8 hours a day, not 10-11 (and get paid overtime!) and 2) that is maybe 20-30 minutes away instead of an hour. That will require accepting a reduction in pay. So ..... the plan is:

1) Get healthy -- being healthy means paying less for prescription drugs.
2) Figure out a budget -- so we can live on less.
3) Learn Spanish -- so I'll be bilingual and can have first pick of the $35K to $40K jobs in the area.

The goal is to be ready to move the job within a year. Bill graciously agreed to learn Spanish with me, and we're looking at Rosetta Stone for Spanish immersion, which of course is the best. Marc and Matt speak Spanish, so I'll find ways to speak more often with them once I'm at level 3 and conversant. This could be fun ......

Blessed

Came home from a great family reunion -- it's hard to describe how I feel, but then I was listening to a playlist today and heard the song that totally describes how I felt about the reunion. Please enjoy it -- I mean every single word.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjsD2hO__0E

To Lyric

About your first comment on teaching people that "The Way" is to emulate females .... your professors may have interpretted it that way, but Lao Tzu says to be female is to be the center of life, the giver of life in all things. Obviously Lao Tzu was pretty evolved for his time. Yes, the basic teaching is to simplify, to give up the need for acquisition of things, to give up the need for control, to learn and to love all things living. Good teachings.

getting old is no party

OMG, what a week. Wednesday I tripped on my own feet and took a header into a chair in the reception area at work. Huge pratt fall. Hugely embarrassing.

Because I was trying to recover instead of falling, I ended up taking 2-3 steps during the tripping process, and actually ended up running head-first into a chair instead of merely falling. Call me Grace (with all appropriate apologies to my grand-niece Gracen, and my wonderful co-worker Grace).

You know how everything slows down before a crash? I remember two things as I was taking the dive: 1) Oh, now this is going to be really embarrassing, and 2) don't hit the reception table. So then I'm laying there, stunned ... thinking "maybe no one saw it ..... I can just get up and act like nothing happened." Then I saw my glasses on the ground, bent out of alignment, and I saw my right ring finger, also bent out of alignment, and then the employees started to gather, and I knew all possibility of this being a non-event was trashed.

My friend Grace took me to the ER and called Bill, sat with me through the paperwork and the cutting off of my anniversary ring (sob), and stayed until Bill arrived. Four hours later I was home with some really good drugs (who knew? they give you lovely parting gifts after an injury! *LOL) and starting to heal.

My coworkers have been getting a lot of mileage out of this (threatening to turn the video security tape, which shows the event, over to america's funniest home videos for quick cash), while I am threatening to charge them $5 each for the show.

Mothers' Day

What a beautiful day. Warm, sunny, breezy .... perfect. Thinking a lot about what a great Mom I have today.

I'm adding some pictures Bill took of the back yard this afternoon to show what a heaven we live in. Sure, there are weeds, and bees and hornets, bugs and skunks. But Central Texas is truly heaven, and I have a piece of that in my back yard. I'm so grateful.

The Way

I know that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is The Way.

I've been listening (audiobook) to an interpretation of the Tao Te Ching and feel I'm already changing. It's difficult to talk to others about it, because its such a personal thing (you know .... pearls before swine and all, although I don't know any real swine) ... just not sure I'm ready to share.

Every day I listen to one of the 81 verses, and it seems every time I do that day's events give me an opportunity to practice The Way. All my life I've felt I've struggled with "being right", needing to be in control of things, trying to force myself to be different. And then, as soon as I gave up trying and practiced the ways of the Tao, I am already there, soft, fluid, kinder, gentler. It doesn't take work .... all you have to do is just let it all go ... just that simple.

This past week at work has been stressful .... lots of changes, lots of new processes being developed, the partners struggling with each other, figuring out their own place on the totem pole of power. Yet I feel I've floated through it all, and success in what I felt was needed just ... well, just kind of happened, once I let go of trying to control it.

The 18th verse rings true this week:

When the greatness of the Tao is present
action arises from one's own heart.
When the greatness of the Tao is absent,
action comes from the rules of "kindness and justice".

If you need rules to be kind and just,
if you act virtuous,
this is a sure sign that virtue is absent.
Thus we see the great hypocrisy.

When kinship falls into discord,
piety and rites of devotion arise.
When the country falls into chaos,
official loyalists will appear;
patriotism is born.

Don't ACT ... do. What did the great Yoda say *LOL*? "Do, or not do. There is no try." I took every possible moment this week to really fill my heart full of love for those I work with, replacing frustrations and thoughts of "aren't they a jerk" with empathy for them as another person created from the same energy I was created from. If I thought someone wronged me, I sent out feelings of love and compassion to them, knowing they intended no harm but were merely grasping for control. You know what .... it worked! Not only did I really feel the compassion and caring, it returned to me from them, with things seemingly smoothing themselves over without even really trying. Once I stopped struggling to be in control, everything worked smoothly and wonderfully. Had a terrific feeling of calm all week.

OK, OK, anyone reading this is going to ask if I lived in California too long .... pretty touchy-feely, I know. But hey, it worked, so what do I know?