...the Wise, the Witty, and the Waste of your time...

Thursday, March 22, 2007

New job...

Soooooo....guess who has a job?

After waiting (and complaining if i must be honest) for so long for a job I fully intended to not only LOVE working but to be OUTSTANDING. Maybe even to make manager in a month.

Manager of what you ask?

Anything! I had myself convinced I could train horses, paint skyscrapers, or run a bank....just give it to me and sit back and watch.

....rriiiight.... I had apparently forgotten the utter confusion and clumsiness of beginning a new job. Something as simple as adding 1 nickel and 3 pennies becomes stressful (for me anyway) because I want to be so sure I'm doing it exactly right.

So I find myself with the complex task of being a cashier and have a hard time remembering just to give customers their change. Not their correct change mind you, thats printed on the screen, their change. I just shut the drawer and say "thankyou very much" (with a pained expression on my face because I'm not actually thanking them, I'm trying to remember if this is the appropriate time in the transaction to be saying 'thankyou') and they stutter out, "uh, um, er, I think....would you mind.....wouldn't I have some change from a $20 if I only bought an apple?"

"Oh...hehe...yes....$19.60 actually. Sorry about that." Believe me, there is no graceful recovery.

Yesterday was my first day and it began with my worst case scenario. My new boss told me he'd be calling me on Monday to tell me when to come in. Monday came and went with no phone call, as did Tuesday. Wednesday morning I panicked to Justin...."what if he left a message on someone else's phone and I'm supposed to go in today?" I convinced myself I was being paranoid and proceeded about my day. 11am rolls around, i'm just home from a jog, sweaty and red faced and i'm waxing my upper lip....the phone rings. "Hi Carolyn, this is Richard...were you planning on making it today!" AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! My intution was correct, there had been a mistake and there they were, waiting for me to show up and i'm home in my underthings with muslin strips dangling under my nose. (i know, beautiful picture isn't it!)

This of course shot me straight into high stress mode for the rest of the day and than I crashed in the evening! And last night for the FIRST time in our marriage, I fell asleep FIRST. (which means we slept with the light on until 2am)

I'm tellin' you, stress'll kill ya.

So...the people are great, the position is ....cashier. A little repetitive. There's actually one other job opportunity i want to explore tomorrow (don't tell my boss) but if it goes nowhere....its the organic grocery for me. :) Can't complain. Like i said, the people are great. That makes all the difference.

Oh yeah....the shirts we "get" to wear are awesome. Words like, bland, shapeless, huge, old sheets, come to mind. Justin actually laughed outloud when I came home wearing my outfit. It would be more feminine to wear coveralls.

Speaking of which....why am i still wearing mine when i'vebeen off for 2 hours!?

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Whining

I wonder why we're so quick to notice and comment/whine on the negatives in life?

This valley goes without sunshine almost all winter. Literally weeks go by without the slightest hint that there is a sun. The occasional day has a few hours but generally we are situated in such a way that we literally wedge a cloud in between the mountains, right over our valley. If you drive up to the ski resort you actually drive above the clouds and lo and behold, the sun is shining up there while we are in cloud down here.

...On to my point. Spring has come to this valley and we've been drenched in the sun for the past several days. There isn't a hint of snow on the ground and although it isn't exactly sun tanning weather, its very very pleasant outside. I've been absolutely thrilled to see the sun, everything looks and smells so clean and fresh but apparently, my feelings aren't shared by all.
I was working at Ten Thousand villages on Tuesday and remarked to a customer how wonderful the weather was and asked if it was still warm outside because we can't actually SEE the sun from inside the mall. In answer she barked, "Oh, its freezing. Absolutely freezing! The sun is alright but that wind is just horrible!" I assumed that the weather must have clouded over since I'd been outside in the morning so after she left I went to the back and checked outside. Perfect, mild, sunny....a brisk breeze was frisking about but it was certainly not the freezing gale this lady had described. I attributed her mood to menopause but Wednesday was even nicer and as I walked into the library I overheard two men grouching about how this "freezing wind makes you feel it isn't even spring!" What??? What is wrong with you people? What is wrong with US people?
Why is it that you can have a day with ten things going right and one thing going wrong and you have a rotten day. You wake up alive, put on clothes you own, eat food right out of your own fridge, get in a car that runs, drive to a job that pays you, etc. and somehow its the soggy deli sandwich or the rude customer or the paper thrown right into the puddle that you notice. There are so many things that go RIGHT for us every day that we've stopped noticing! Our eyes blink, our family loves us, our minds function, (well, not before coffee) there are shoes on our feet and hopefully underware on our bums but these blessings are so "humble" as to be unnoticed.

I desperately want to learn thankfulness. Not the mindless "cheer up, Christian- count your blessings, pilgrim" but a real genuine heartfelt thankfulness for the good I get to experience all the time, every day!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen....a poem. This is the last assignment I had in my nutrition course. Thought you might like it. I felt like sharing my abundance of poetic talent. Can't let a thing as good as this go to waste ya know!


BIOFLAVONOIDS

If your wife is bloated and cranky,
Eating chocolate and drowning her hanky
I might be your answer,
As a hormone bal-ancer,
I'm Isoflavonoid. I'm Estrogenic. You'll thank me.

Do your legs look like road maps to Rome?
Have hemorrhoids made you their home?
Is your skin spotted blue;
An ezcema psoriasis zoo?
I'm Bioflavonoid; capillary strengthening, saver of skin tone

I give color and aroma to fruit;
Red and blue is my signature suit.
In citrus I live in the pith.
I'm in grapes, prunes, and rose hipth.
I'm anthocyanin, a flavonoid brilliantly hued.

We're part of the complex - vitamin C,
Enhancing its action. Called Vitamin P.
Don't take us as a supplement,
Raw foods are better nourishment.
We're flavonoids, antioxidants, immunomodulatory.


PS. If you're curious as to what immunomodulatory means (as I was) it means: Capable of modifying or regulating one or more immune functions.

By: Carolyn Wiebe
(with much appreciated help from husband Justin!)

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Stupid Celebrities...

Am I the only one getting sick and tired of having celebrity garbage shoved down my throat?

While standing in the checkout line to buy cheese you can quickly scan headlines and learn anything from what color toenail polish they prefer to their favorite position in bed to who is lying about cheating with who. Are we obsessed or just brainwashed?

Honestly, if a stranger came up to you on the street and volunteered to tell you their dirty secrets or the way they drink their coffee, would you listen? Or if someone tried to sell you and handful of pictures of their extended family's hidden cellulite...would you take them....much less BUY them?

Who decided we need to know this stuff? Why why WHY do I know all these useless facts about all these conceited, obscenly rich people? I hate it. I hate that I know who Jessica Simpson is dating and what Brittany Spears looks like through her clothes. How can we turn it off? The only reason, the ONLY reason these so called "famous" people are famous and rich is because WE MAKE THEM FAMOUS AND RICH! They should be taking OUR pictures and reading OUR bios! We are the ones who watch their movies, buy their music, and read their stupid stories. If we stopped, they would have to go work at Burger King for minimum wage. Then they could no longer afford their 24/7 hair dresser and $13,000 jeans and they would have to look like our neighbors and live like our families.

Most disgusting of all is that you don't have to be talented at a single thing or even be decent or a nice person to be famous. They're now famous just for being famous. Being INfamous pays just as well as being famous so you can actually live like absolute pigs and people will STILL celebrate your rotten self just because you are beautiful and 'famous.' Actually, to be more acurate, your hair extensions and make up and fake nose and fake breasts and fake tan are beautiful, no one has any idea what you actually look like.

No, I'm not bitter. Maybe hateful, but not bitter. :) How am I going to be able to teach my girls about true beauty and character and femininity when these disgusting, self centered, fake, vulgur women take center stage? How do I wade through the muck for what is real and true and noble and good? Its hard enough for me much less an impressionable 13 year old.

Maybe by the time I have daughters, the Paris Hiltons and Britany Spears of the day will actually be beautiful and worth celebrating...although I have my doubts.

Thursday, March 1, 2007

The best thing about bein' a woman...

I read an article the other day concerning periods.

A woman was writing about how some doctors recommend that women on the pill now throw away the 7 day sugar pill and stay on the real thing every day, all their lives and thus avoid ever having a period. The lady writing about this was appalled, as I was, that we could be so naive as to think we can so mess with our hormones, completely STOP something our bodies were CREATED to do....and expect we won't reap the consequences (breast cancer anyone?) in the future. It is terrible, I agree.

However...this wise woman then proceeded to say that rather than view a period as messy, inconvenient, or gross, she loves, loves, loves it. She feels utterly connected to all women everywhere when she has her period. In fact, she refuses to use anything disposable because she finds it too special to treat it as something to be covered up, soaked up, wrapped in a tissue, and discarded. She sews her own pads (out of colorful, happy materials no less) and washes and reuses them...oh the joy. While dealing with her wonderful flow of blood she prefers to stay at home, wear no 'protection,' and simply spread a towel on the couch and "let 'er go." In fact, her preferred solution is to sit outside on the ground and allow her blood to flow back into Mother Earth and feel connected to the cycle of life. ....wha...what?

Call me a pessimist, but I am never that excited when "aunt mary" comes to visit. Last night I woke myself up groaning at 1am, got up, took medicine and tried to sleep. By 2:30 after tossing and groaning and making Justin and I both miserable, I got up for my monthly midnight bath.

You know I've never looked forward to this 28 day ritual, but it used to be alright. I'd fill up the tub all the way with the hottest water I could stand, prop myself up and sleep for an hour or more. However, where we now live, we have a one man (tiny little pygmy man actually) water tank and it only fills the tub 4 inches. So instead of propping up and going to sleep; I lay all the way down wishing the water was deep enough to cover my poor aching abdomen. Instead I have ears full of water and my belly is sticking out and goose pimply. After 45 minutes of dosing i wake up to find the water freezing around my stiff body and I check to see if there's just a tiny bit of hot water again. There is so I add everything I can and now there's just enough water to cover me but its only lukewarm.

Its horrible, by the time i crawl back into bed 2 hours later, wet hair, absolutely freezing, I can't even feel my cramps anymore because I'm shaking so violently.

I do feel connected to all other women, but I think its because misery loves company. And as much as I hate this I still don't want to take a pill to stop it entirely but will somebody please pass the extra strength Advil?