Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
I’m sad to report that Deodorant Brandy is not our fake band of the week. Though it really should be. Alas.
Anyway, still on Extremely Necessary Vacation. Which is almost over. That’s pretty much the gist of the Chicken.
The hard stuff
Stress.
Awful, awful guiltified stress. A lot of which is just in my head. And some of which is residual guilt about going on Extremely Necessary Vacation in the first place.
My stuff. Hi.
But man.
Too many stupid little things adding to my stress.
First I forgot to pay some phone bills because I haven’t had access to my calendar.
The bookmark in my toolbar that was supposed to remind me to pay something else just up and disappeared.
Then my landlady cashed the October rent check a few days before the first of the month, which is the date I was planning on.
Ugh. Charges and fees and overdrafts and worries and annoyances. Do. Not. Like.
Ever had deodorant-flavoured brandy?
Because I have.
This one isn’t so much a “hard” as a “weird”. Luckily (though is that really the right word when discussing deodorant brandy?) it was the crystal mineral kind and not the gooey stick of chemicals kind.
And no, the deodorant did not belong to me. And no, I’m not going into details.
But you know what would be awesome? Brandy-flavoured deodorant. Now that is something I would pay for.
Not wanting Extremely Necessary Vacation to end.
Though all things do. I’m back to work on Monday.
The good stuff
VACATION!
I kind of can’t believe this but I’m still on Extremely Necessary Vacation, which is now turning into I Love This Vacation Thing So Much Vacation.
Being on holiday suits me. Oh yes.
Also, this is the longest vacation I’ve ever had. By a lot. Though really it’s only the second vacation I’ve ever had, if you don’t count being unemployed, broke and terrified. Which I don’t.
Anyway, it is so ridiculously healthy, despite all the worries I manage to bring along. I think I’m actually going to uh, plan one this year, so I don’t end up taking Emergency Vacations instead. Revolutionary!
You know what else is magical about vacation?
It makes you want to work.
Well, it makes me want to work.
Once I really started working through the burnout, all my enthusiasm for the meaning of my work came flooding back in.
Passion. And drive. I’ve been seriously missing these things. Yay.
Relaxation. It’s like, good for you.
I know, I know. Not so good at practicing what I preach.
(Oh how I love that there were about twenty things I could have linked to there — also tempted to mention this and this too.)
But it’s amazing.
I look in the mirror and I think, wow … so THIS is what I look like without bags under my eyes. And when I get exercise outdoors.
Turns out that not working makes me much better looking.
Stuff being outrageously beautiful.
I’ve honestly seen more rainbows on this Extremely Necessary Vacation than in my whole life. Also gorgeous skies and beautiful sunrises and ridiculously adorable cavorting dolphins.
Now, admittedly, normally these would be the kind of cheesy, embarrassing vacation-symbols that would send me into Extremely Sarcastic Mode, but I have to say …
Nope. It’s just really, really beautiful.
I took a tap dancing class!
That’s mostly notable because the fact that I did it surprised the hell out of me.
I also really enjoyed myself, which was pretty surprising too.
And … playing live at the meme beach house!
Yes, that’s a Stuism too.
My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”
So this week, I must introduce you to:
Irresponsible Cream
I got the idea from Alicia who suggested (in last week’s Chicken) pumpkin and leek soup with Irresponsible Cream. I love Irresponsible Cream! Clearly … it’s just one guy.
And … STUISMS of the week.
Stu is my paranoid McCarthy-ist voice-to-text software who delights in torturing me misunderstanding me. I can’t stand him.
- Gods and only God gajillion instead of “ohmygod Jillian!”
- except that just permeates so much heroin instead of “except that for me it’s so much harder”
- the okay horse and this orator instead of “the chaos and the disorder”
- That Site is funny via the feared big hug instead of “so I just want to give you a big hug”
- bad chick daisy instead of “batshit crazy”
- milking the rounds instead of “making demands”
- justify the bye instead of “it’s just one guy”
That’s it for me …
And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious weekend. And a happy week to come.
Follow
Bad Chick Daisy could be an excellent 80’s hair band name…
Glad to hear you’re having so much gorgeousness and rest (and rainbows!).
Wishing you the best when you transition from vacation life to regular life. But that’s DAYS away! I mean, vacation days can really be like whole months sometimes. So just forget I even brought up. Apologies…
The Okay Horse and This Orator sounds like the next winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. hmm, maybe I should write it?
So what a weird week. I think i mentioned that my boss is leaving and that we have no idea who is going to replace him and what it might mean to us. well this week we had three days away as a team which also incorporated his official leaving dinner. which leads us to….
The Bad
I was tired when the week started because last week was so insane. By the time I got to our venue for the team days I was also feeling emotional and messy.
Wednesday morning over breakfast i had news that tipped me over the edge and i had a horrible few hours feeling really lost and not a bit crazy.
I missed my wifey.
The Good
my team came to the rescue. the work we did on wednesday afternoon and the meal in the evening laughing together and saying an emotional goodbye to our boss really helped.
by the time we left on thursday afternoon i was tired but OK.
And some more Bad
well this is weird because it’s not That Bad but it is A Bit Inconvenient. While my colleague was driving me home my face started to puff up all around my mouth and left cheek. By the time I got home I was looking pretty much like the Elephant Man.
I went to A&E – that’s the ER, American friends – and they sent me home to take antihistamines.
So i woke up still puffy this morning but it’s going down slowly. I tried to work and then gave up. Confession? i am sitting in bed surfing while a Friends DVD plays in the background….
Have a great weekend all.
xx
.-= Lucy1972´s last blog ..Inside Working, Outward Facing =-.
Reading your thoughts about your extremely necessary vacation really make me think that that’s exactly what I need. Passion and drive? Wanting to work? Oh, man! If only!
My hard week: I’m terrified. My “I’m failing at this biz thing” stress, my “I want to kill my housemates” stress and my “we will be homeless in a month if we don’t find a flat right now” stress are all drawing into each other like a black hole of terror and ick. Spagettification seems nigh.
I seek distraction. It does not help. I’m relying on yoga (so hard to get myself to do it) and my base biological drive to live to pull me through this. Feel like I’m standing on thin ice and the fear could just drag me down and swallow me. I’m hoping that this is just a metaphor.
My good week: My mother and sister are visiting me! I’m living abroad, so this is kind of a big deal, even if it’s only an hours flight. My mum is great, she’s cooking for us and helping me tame the garden. My sister is also great, I love her no-nonsense, straight to the truth attitude about things. We drink tea and talk. Sweet.
Thanks for having the chicken, Havi. Will let you know how the whole spagettification thing works out. (Wiki for if you’re wondering what the heck spagettification is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification)
.-= Willie Hewes´s last blog ..Sassy Friend =-.
‘Extremely Necessary Vactation’ should totally be renamed to ‘Extremely Necessary Vactation, Yeah!’ both because it is awesome for you and ecourages envy in those of use not having the same.
Hooray for chickens! Dolphins and rainbows! So cute. Keep an eye out for unicorns (sorry, couldn’t resist). Ahem.
Hmm, ok hard this week:
-huge yelly fight with my hub that ended with him throwing things and breaking the things that the things were thrown at. Scary. I’m still picking up glass (generally by stepping on it with bare feet). Grrr.
-I got a cold, my first since…I don’t even know. It made me want to sleep. And kind of crabby. (Though of course that might have been the glass in my foot.)
-I forgot to order garlic again this year. Not really a major hard, but I really meant to do it so I’d be able to have garlic out of the garden next year (it’s one of those plants that adapts to your microclimate over time, so I would end up with garlic just for my garden after a few years). There’s always next year, but this is the third year in a row that I missed the garlic boat.
Good Good Good
-The cold only lasted two days. There’s something to be said for eating lots and lots of locally grown produce, sleeping when you need to sleep and doing yoga.
-There are two pumpkins in the garden that should be ready for halloween. There’s also still plenty of greens and some beans and tiny little zucchinis and patty pan squash. Oh, and carrots. And beets. So, yum!
-The squirrels are in crazed nut-burying mode and are driving the dog, um, nuts. I shouldn’t laugh in his defeat, but it’s really funny to watch them taunt him.
-I took a day off on purpose (today). We slept late, and as soon as I submit this comment, the Little Bird and I are going to find some fun. It’s rainy, so our fun may be splashy and puddly. Cool thing is, she’s still young enough not to mind getting muddy. And so am I 🙂
.-= Emily´s last blog ..Fishing for Poems Yields Birdwings =-.
How can it be Friday again already? Your vacation sounds idyllic. (I must have me one of them some year.) And Stu has outdone himself this week. Lucy, I want to read The Okay Horse and This Orator as soon as it comes out. Or go and hear Okay Horse in concert.
Hard this week:
– Overshadowing everything else, one of my husband’s loveliest relatives died yesterday, suddenly, of an aneurysm. I am hugely saddened and shocked; I can barely imagine what his closer family must be going through.
Good this week:
+ Lots of socialising with other home-ed families.
+ Some inkling of a sense that my precious little blogging venture might be going in a good direction. Maybe.
But yeah. Tough week.
.-= Lean Ni Chuilleanain´s last blog ..Remember September? =-.
Having tap dancing class envy right now. That’s so on my bucket list! Also, vacations have this thing of not revealing their necessity until you’re well into them.
My week has been fairly calm without decidedly hard and mainly good to look forward to. Still, here’s my week in terms of good and bad:
– Cell phone has drowned in this week’s heavy rain, which is only a tiny bummer on the Grand Scale of Things, really.
+ Looking forward to having an ‘I feel like things have changed / I am in transition’ radical haircut tomorrow, even though I strongly dislike going to the hair dresser.
+ Looking forward to go visit Friend That Moved to London in November. Extra bonus good: another mutual friend is coming along.
+ New phone will have a tiny solar panel thing to load the battery. So if I ever happen to find myself lost in the desert with an empty phone battery, I’ll be covered. Except that there won’t be any network, probably.
Wishing all a great week to come, with the good outnumbering the bad in quantity and/or quality!
My lovely coach held a gun to my head and forced me to block out my vacations for the next 18 months. (OK, he did not hold a gun to my head, he asked me quietly and nicely. Same thing, essentially.) So I did.
So I’m going to Paris in February and the mountains in 2 weeks and other insane things.
Apparently the trick for me is to plan it so far in advance that I don’t think it will ever actually happen, and then as I get closer, things like hotels & airfare have already been dealt with, so I guess I might as well do it.
(I feel your pain on the overdrafty things, that is the bane of my existence. I hate that feeling but somehow I keep doing the things that create it.)
.-= Sonia Simone´s last blog ..What Makes Marketing Hard? =-.
Wonderful Extremely Necessary Vacation! And here’s to actually planning one for next year.
Me this week:
– Overscheduled. Again.
– Trying not to stress about it.
– Sending out a specific “help wanted” and getting back only one response that was nowhere close to meeting my need.
– Forgetting to stop for breaks and to use my body.
– Eating poorly.
– Insurance company dragging its feet on approving body work to my car (very minor accident several weeks ago; no injuries, just a crumpled door; person who hit my car falsely claiming that I was partially at fault and should pay for the repairs).
+ I remembered to walk yesterday!
+ Have written blog posts almost every day this week.
+ One of them received almost 300 visitors!
+ Have been moderately successful with “not stressing out.”
+ Too much to do = income! My business is NOT going down the tubes.
+ Too much to do = freedom, if necessary, to tell Very Difficult Client to either send me the stuff to finish her site, or else find someone else to do it.
+ Friday Chicken and being able to read what everyone is up to, and sort through my own week in review.
+++ Community. Slow but building. Reading what others are going through and being able to send out quiet waves of support.
– Deodorant brandy. That is so wrong.
.-= Carol Logan Newbill´s last blog ..Two Great Ways to Send Your Readers Fleeing into the Night =-.
I am also taking tap dance lessons. From my wife. Because my wife is a tap dance instructor. This is what she does for a living. She teaches tap dancing. She has posters of Gregory Hines in her office. Because she is a tap dance instructor. I have to repeat this a few times because I find that fact so terribly improbable and odd.
Anyway, she’s teaching me at step called the Sammy Davis which I insisted she teach because it is called the Sammy Davis. It is taking me a long time to learn because I am the worst dancer in Canada.
5,6,7,8!
Yay for your wonderful, Oh-So-Necessary vacation. And for rainbows, dolphins, tap-dancing and anything else that nourishes you and brings you joy! May your re-entry into the world of work be gentle.
My chicken for the week:
Hard: Still slow and spacious from retreat, and finding it hard to stay in step with the faster pace of things. Also, not wanting to.
Good: So much wonderfulness this week. Wide horizons. Inner spaciousness. Sessions of astonishing creativity and healing with clients. A visit from my #1 son. Put all the summer stuff (from deck furniture to clothes) away and rearranged my living space to make a lovely nest for the colder weather. Fall beauty–turning leaves, wild geese, frosty nights and sunny days.
Happy weekend, everyone, and happy Thanksgiving for those of you who live in Canada.
Love, Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last blog ..Refugees: Remembering 9/11 =-.
Hmm, I’ll try this out.
The bad:
– Messing up at work and disappointing someone. Realizing that I can’t work without structure.
– The awful feeling of being behind in school work. It feels like slowly sinking. I have dreams where I have a class I haven’t been showing up to all semester. Awful.
The good:
– Realizing that I can’t work without structure, and making very necessary changes. I really want this to work out, and I need to re-focus.
– New jeans! They fit great, they’re stretchy and comfortable, not ridiculously low-waisted.
– Friends! Seeing them at parties, meeting them for coffee, emailing back and forth.
.-= Ophélie´s last blog ..You know what’s interesting? =-.
Just poking my head in to nominate “Gods And Only God Gajillion” as a band name.
.-= Tracy´s last blog ..Retrospective: “Now, Again, Poetry, I Grasp For You” =-.
Yeah, it’s Friday Fun and Gratitude day.
The Good:
-Getting over some major bad self talk hurdles and feeling imaginative
-Having a loving husband that is all about growing our marriage.
-Reading good books: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers and 7 Days in the Art World.
The Bad:
-Despite my emotional spaciousness, the body is all locked up! Right front hip is so tight that I didn’t sleep a wink last night.
Resolution: I need to get back into yoga. pronto.
.-= Lydia, Clueless Crafter´s last blog ..Love, Loss and What You wore? =-.
Now, admittedly, normally these would be the kind of cheesy, embarrassing vacation-symbols that would send me into Extremely Sarcastic Mode, but I have to say … Nope. It’s just really, really beautiful.
That’s totally what I felt like on my honeymoon. Things were over the top beautiful and it bordered on the cheesy, but – nope – just truly beautiful. And I have pictures!
And damn, the Stu-isms were awesome this week!
OK – here’s my Chicken, which I am happy to say I’ve not missed one since I said I would do this every week. But I don’t remember how long that it’s been – but yay for rituals.
The hard:
– So so tired. So tired that it was suggested I might have chronic fatigue syndrome, but I refuse to have One More Thing wrong with me, so I’m just thinking I work hard, I get tired. I need more sleep. End of story.
– Sleeping has been hard. I get there at 8:30 at night and then wake up when the hippie hubby comes to bed, then can’t get back to sleep for three hours with the busiest head ever.
– Broke and trying to be patient while a new client runs through their *entire* 30 days before paying my invoice.
– Another scooter broke down. That’s two out of three in the shop.
– No time for Shiva dancing or yoga-stretching.
– Still working out the icky tummy so still on a boring diet.
The good:
+ So much closer to being done with a very cool site.
+ Healthy kitties and hubby
+ Three new kinds of beer in the house, in various stages of fermentation. So nice to see the hippie hubby loving his birthday present so much and looking forward to being able to drink again because the first batch is nearly gone.
+ Cruising on the SS Jeremiah O’Brien all weekend for Fleet Week which will be both good and hard. More on that later.
Signing off, “bad chick daisy” 🙂
Yay for outrageous beauty! And for less Bad Chick Daisy 🙂
The hard this week:
Our neighbor had a stroke, and needed to be life-flighted to Columbus on Wednesday. She’s in her 50’s 🙁
Running out of canvases and still having ideas to paint.
Daughter #2 is still having struggles with her anxiety and I can’t do anything to make it better.
Heavy rain going through and triggering my “Oh my god the roof isn’t leaking again is it?” anxieties. (no it didn’t, which is good!)
The good:
I painted on all the canvases I had, and decided to keep one painting for myself. It’s hanging next to my bed with my vision collages and my business mandala now 🙂
Because I ran out of canvases, I had to use other supplies in my studio. I started beading the giant corn again and actually believe I can finish it this time.
Izzy and I saw a beautiful rainbow in a spider web on our walk Monday morning.
The Columbus Zoo has half off admission for the holiday weekend and we are going!
Have a great weekend, y’all!
.-= Andi´s last blog ..Taking the Leap =-.
Stu is ON this week! those are some of the best I’ve heard from him in awhile. 🙂
Ah Friday Chicken…. so many crazy goings on these days, its hard to narrow them down.
Hard:
Round 5 of layoffs since I’ve worked here. This time it was my closest friends, the ones that got me the job. There was crying. There was drunkenness, it was not pretty. Feeling more and more distant and awkward with my gentleman friend. Definitely feeling guilty, but I know I am doing the right thing for ME by moving out. Finding a new place to live is scary. Sticking to my guns about what I need and not compromising just to get it over with is also hard. My gentleman friend’s mom is staying with us for a week. As far as I know, he has not told her I am moving out. I am feeling lots of awkwardness there. dreading spending the weekend with them and the explaining where I’m going when I go to meet potential roommate/see the house on Sunday. Not knowing how he really feels about any of it is the worst. It feels like he is indifferent to me living there and and and…. yeah. ick.
Good:
caught up with an old friend and had good talks. my newest friend has been amazing too. lots of re-energizing and encouragement and inspiration coming out of our talking. Lots of things I’ve been missing for a very long time. Have not been creatively/art productive, and feeling ok with myself about it because I have so many other things weighing on me. thats pretty huge! My new nephew and sister are doing great and he is an easy happy baby 🙂 Can’t wait to meet him Christmas!
I hope everyone has a lovely fall weekend 🙂
Hey darling vacation girl,
So HAPPY for you that you are getting a chance to practice what you preach!! Because you preach such amazingly wonderful things!!!
Hard: I have teeth. I am old. It’s taking way to much work and money and time and pain and visits to the dentist to keep those old teeth in my head where I think they belong. Plus, I am a dental phobic and trips to the dentist take twice as long as they do for most people because I have to ask them to give me time to just CRY for periods of time just to release the body trauma stress.
Hard: I can’t eat solid food for two weeks. I never knew that I would miss chewing so much.
Good: I am getting over my dental phobia enough to GET to the dentist and thus keep my teeth for hopefully many more years to come.
Really Good: My sweetest and best husband in the world came with me to the dentist and rubbed my feet the WHOLE TIME which made me feel incredibly loved and taken care of. Which put this whole experience in a special category I have which I call ” good bad experiences”.
Hugs and love,
Chris
.-= chris zydel´s last blog ..Ghost Ranch 2009: Bringing The Magic Of Being On Retreat Back Home =-.
Yay for Friday!
The Hard:
-My stuff coming up big time around not feeling smart. People say I’m smart, even people who don’t love me, and I’m getting a Ph.D. (which culture considers “evidence” of smartness). So why do I feel so stupid and unable to learn and speak intelligently? Really, I know better, but this is totally painful old crap.
-Still no luck on the full-time permanent job search, which has triggered the whole ‘I’m not good enough, I don’t know enough, I’m not an expert in anything, I’m not worthy’ schtick. See above.
The Good:
+Learning about a loophole in the university system, so I’ll be able to keep my uni job for another 6 months (with health insurance. and my own office!). After that, it’s do or die.
+Likely scheduling my dissertation defense for December, so I should have the Ph.D. by then.
+Beautiful, sensitive, gentle gentleman friend comforting me every night.
.-= Dawn´s last blog ..Still Feeling Defensive… =-.
Havi and Sonia, I’m right there with you on the money thing. So hard to keep ahead of everything! I have an overdraft thing set up so that I don’t incur fees (as long as I have capacity there, anyway, which I haven’t gone over yet thank goodness), which helps, though it still feels so much like fail when I end up using it. Hard indeed!
This week is totally failing to feel like it’s Friday, wtf. Why does Friday always surprise me? I wake up and think, what day is it, is it Tuesday? No, no, yesterday was… hey, it’s Friday! Heh.
This week paired a lot of hard with good, so I’m going to do them in pairs as long as there’s pairs to do…
– Wrenched my hip late last week and am only mostly recovered. Ow.
+ A friend came over Saturday and speeded along the recovery with therpeutic massage. More ow, but in a good way.
– Then, Pod ate his button.
+ Which was, actually, kind of hilarious, even if I do have to sew it back on.
– Had Attack of the Tummy on Tuesday for no apparent reason.
+ It seems to have been just that one afternoon/evening, and abated back to normal already. So weird.
– Chipped a tooth and had much panic about whether I’d need a crown or what.
+ Dentist said the chip wasn’t structurally damaging, polished down the little leftover outcropping, and charged me for an office visit, because he is awesome.
– Still having trouble balancing the work hours I need to do daily with all the other stuff I need to do. Wednesdays are the big fail day, where I do networking and then social stuff and never manage to get any work done.
+ I did get work done Monday, some Tuesday & lots Yesterday (today’s will be after this, heh), and am making excellent strides on one big project.
– My life is filled with cat barf, sigh.
+ Clean clothes, clean dishes, and soon I’ll clean up the cat barf. It’s their way of saying, “I love you… now clean that up.” Really.
– Put out the idea of Holiday commissions on Twitter, and go no responses. It would probably help if I had that site up. Oops?
+ Getting some awesome creativity coaching and she’s asking me hard questions I want to avoid. I’m thinking I’ll devote some of the quiet time this weekend to getting that site up.
+ Staying ahead of my expenses and feeling like I could in fact survive the end of the year, financially.
+ Networking thing on Weds has given me a new prospect for a client, who is awesome and I’d be very excited to work with.
+ Kittehs in otherwise good health and spirits, barfing aside.
+ Feeling generally less perpetually behind this week, though there’s still things nagging to be done.
+ Messed up one of the mini-commissions, redid it, and the commissioner decided to buy the first one anyway, which was awesome. Have mailed off all but 1 of those, which requires Post Office Intervention, unlike the rest that just needed stamps.
+ Went Contra dancing on Weds night (something a bit like Irish country dancing? idk, there were reels and long lines of people and I messed it up a lot and no one seemed to mind). Slept 10 hrs and then had a very productive Thurs afterwards, heh.
All in all, a full and good week!
.-= Amy Crook´s last blog ..Art: Molten Sky =-.
Amy Crook!
my life is filled with cat barf too. what IS that? xx
.-= Lucy1972´s last blog ..Inside Working, Outward Facing =-.
Not much of a review once again this week (yesterday was just so hard, it overshadows what came before), but I’ve realised something that’s related to the hard of the past several weeks, and I feel like sharing it.
So, as I’ve said before, I had the feeling that the weeks were flying by way too fast, and it was already the end of the week before I’d had the time to do anything to make my thing move forward. That was hard. And I’ve found out one of the reasons that made me feel that way:
*My brain and my body are on a 48-hour day cycle*
Sounds crazy, but that’s what it feels like: one day for me is 48 hours with a long nap in the middle of it. So when I have to come to grip with the fact that for the rest of the world it is, say, Thursday, I feel totally unsettled and pressured because it was, like, Tuesday afternoon to me… and I was feeling good about being able to make something happen on Wednesday, for example, but no, Wednesday is gone, and so is Thursday. Hard.
I guess it counts as some sort of epiphany (yay!). Now to find what I can do with that piece of info…
.-= Josiane´s last blog ..Practicing body poetry with Havi =-.
Hi!!
The hard-
Feeling low and sluggish, craptastic weather, generally a low low week. Not nearly enough exercise to bump me out of my funk, but the weather was crummy and the excuses were flying. Finances making me worried and bleeeahhh.
The good-
Saturday was very Up and awesome, lots and lots of fun. Sunday was the awesome!! More fun. I learned how to bake World Peace Cookies. (How many I ate all by myself… that may have to be filed under ‘probably shouldn’t have but oh well.’)
Thank goodness for the chicken, most of the Good was at the start of this week, with a long run of bleah. Good to have a reminder!!!
Super-big-hugs
Ingrid
Amy, you have a good bank! I have an overdraft thing but they charge me a big fat fee each time it kicks in. And of course when I do it, I always bounce like 5 transactions at once.
Signed,
Yes, I am the World’s Most Gigantic Flake
.-= Sonia Simone´s last blog ..What Makes Marketing Hard? =-.
Vacation. I need one of those. I like Sonia’s coach’s suggestion of planning them out and making the arrangements so far ahead of time that it sneaks up on you and you figure what the hell, since it’s all arranged. Clever.
This week’s hard:
– Eternally and always, lots to do, not quite enough time to do it. One thing slipped through the cracks, which had a domino effect on everything else when I picked it up off the floor and stuck it back where it needed to be.
– No time to play. It makes me cranky.
This week’s good:
– The projects keep coming, and they keep getting more interesting and more worth my while.
– I finally cleared up a noisy little pile of piddly little things that were sitting on the corner of my desk and would chirp incessantly at me every time I sat down, stood up, walked by, glanced in that direction, or studiously avoided looking at or thinking about them. Good riddance.
– I had an amazing a-ha moment and figured out what one of the key components in the studio remodel will be (when I get around to it, which will probably be at least a year from now).
– The turkeys are back and have been cavorting in the yard all afternoon. I don’t know why the turkeys make me so happy, but they do.
.-= Lori Paximadis´s last blog ..tidbits: turkey edition =-.
deodorant brandy sounds ew.
The good:
+epiphany in complicated situation
+epiphany in complicated relationship
+epiphany regarding my approach to interpersonal communication in general
+Wu Wei practice is great. Living in the now REALLY untangles stuff
the hard:
-work’s hard right now, in the mind numbing way. Purely mental
-lonely, lonely, lonely
-stumbled about lots of fear and stuck regarding my art.
.-= Carina (@chalcara)´s last blog ..Abandoned Powerplant; photos of =-.
I have been off the chicken wagon (oh, ew) for a few weeks now, but I’m ready to jump back in!
The Hard
– late night out at a loud concert on Tuesday. I didn’t like being in the loud, I didn’t like standing on my feet for so many hours so late into the evening. and it made me tired for the rest of the week.
– trying to start a new mini before-bed yoga routine of three poses + savasana. the hard about it is how it disrupts my old before-bed snuggling routine with gf.
– money stress.
The Good
– feeling spaciousness in my job-job. We hired some new staff, so I’m feeling a lot of pressure lifting off me – both internally and externally. Also feeling like I have less and less to prove here as I think about transitioning away.
– my new mini before-bed yoga routine! It really gets me in my body before bed time, a little pause in my day, a break between day and sleep.
– Sunday nap. It’s a new tradition, falling right before Sunday baking.
– Sunday baking!
– new haircut, new hairwashing routine. It’s all about feeling more like me, and feeling more okay with me. Also I love my hairstylist, who always hugs me. Spending an hour talking with her about doulas really gets me inspired.
– online business help. I’ve been listening to free teleclasses, the Havi and Naomi Recession call, and other jewels all week while doing admin work at job-job. Also a big source of inspiration.
– therapy. My therapist and I are really getting into a groove where I feel both safe/comfortable and stretched.
This was such a good week! Tonight I’m off to see Thich Nhat Hahn speak and then on to a 3-day weekend. woo hoo! Happy weekend, chickeners.
You know, I think I might enjoy a vacation at the meme beach house. You think maybe they could squeeze me in? After all, I’m…*just one gal*.
My hard this week:
-I let down a friend. She sent me a distressed email in which she confided some marital problems, and asked for my thoughts/feelings/insights. If I had just *slowed down for one minute*, taken time to breathe and absorb, I might have realized that what she really wanted was empathy, reflective listening, emotional support. I’m *good* at all that stuff. But no, I was rushing, and in my haste I dashed off a rather brusque, candid, confrontational, challenging set of clarifying questions. I’m surprisingly good at *that*, too, but there’s a time and a place, and rapid-fire email exchange in the height of distress was neither the time nor the place. I did apologize, and she appears to have largely forgiven me, but she also seems to have shut down on the subject. I’m having some trouble forgiving myself.
My good this week:
-I punched an itty-bitty, but very significant hole in an old negative pattern of mine. When the first draft of one of my PhD papers was due, and I felt it to be a tangled and incomplete mess, I did *not* go hide in a corner, letting the deadline slide and waiting until the draft was “good enough,” beating myself up in the meantime. No, I sent the mess to my adviser, and said, “Here’s what I’ve got, I think some of it is pretty good, but I’m stuck on the rest of it, can you help me out a bit, please?” And what do you know? My adviser advised me! I asked, and I received — and I was not shamed, but supported!
My weekend will be filled of doctoral writing and editing. First, though, I’m going to curl up with my daughter while she reads me *The Little Prince.* Coziness!
.-= spiralsongkat´s last blog ..Wishin’, and hopin’, and freakin’, and copin’… =-.
Um, whoops, I meant, “filled *with* doctoral writing and editing” — once I’ve finished editing my own comment here!
.-= spiralsongkat´s last blog ..Wishin’, and hopin’, and freakin’, and copin’… =-.
Hooray for relaxation, and again for passion and drive. Glad to hear your Extremely Necessary Vacation is being effective and enjoyable as well.
Chicken time!
The hard:
– Stepping on the scale that I’d been avoiding and learning that I’d put about 12 pounds back on.
– Sad pickles. Our first batch turned out soooo good, but the second got contaminated and we had to throw them all away. And we were so looking forward to them. And I think the pickling-cucumber season’s pretty much over for this year.
– The magazine that interviewed me this summer just published the issue I was supposed to be in. The article was there, but nothing from my interview was used.
The good:
– Getting back to my normal eating habits after the wake up call from the scale and my harder-to-button pants. Seeing results already. Yay!
– Perhaps even better than being back on track with my weight was that I didn’t beat myself up at all about it. To be able to say to myself that this isn’t the direction I want to take, and make corrections, without first spending tons of time and energy calling myself fat and ugly was really, *really* refreshing.
– Action in my business – designing new things, making new things, taking photos, website redesign in process, etc. Plus I heard back that I got into one of the big December shows I applied to.
– Having a husband that makes me laugh every single day. I’ve been really appreciating that recently.
.-= Shannon Henry´s last blog ..On Artists and Money =-.
Hi Havi dear,
I just finished a post of my current hard followed by hopeful rescue. Short version: depleted, distracted, wasting my life. But maybe not so lost as I feel.
Mostly here to say hello. Dolphins! Pre-Emergency Vacation planning! and love.
Also, honored to share the woo-glory with you as bestowed by Mr. Pants.
Note to Chris Zydel – I am mind-numbingly terrified by dentists. Found someone who does “sedation dentistry.” This time I say, give me drugs! Pricey but cheaper than losing all my teeth. Saves crying and post traumatic stress.
.-= Mahala Mazerov´s last blog ..The Friday Flower: Inner and Outer Light =-.
The hard:
– so completely overbooked. 10 more weeks until semester is over. Feels like an eternity.
– too many late nights finishing assignments for doctoral program
– poor eating habits + stress + little sleep = fat fat fat
the good:
– 2, yes, 2 kitties adopted us today at the shelter. They come tomorrow. Cat cuddles await!!!
– the scarecrow my students made. It is a cyclist mounted on my old bike. Way cool!
– being there for our office assistant when she got the awful news that her beloved mother-in-law would not survive surgery. And being able to have one of my students drive her the 30 miles to the hospital so she could be with her before she passed. I know that pain and just how much it means to be with you loved one in their last hours.
Hi Havi and everyone…
Brandy deodorant, hm? Sure hope it smells better than brandy breath.
Anywho.
Hard: Mysterious ick feelings, more often and longer-lasting. Like I’m getting sick, but never do. Yeah, I know, should go get checked out. It’s going on a few years now.
Good: A week full of clients. Most on one day (kinda hard, but still).
And I finally gave in and started Marks Silver’s Heart of Business stuff. Blowing. My. Mind.
AND! Chatting with Fabeku about writing something together. Whee!
.-= Gina´s last blog ..The Morality of Healing =-.
My 4-year-old had surgery this week. And it was hard. But the good news is that it was much LESS hard than I thought it would be. And it was not particularly hard on my 4-year-old, because our Children’s Hospital is 15 kinds of awesome.
But now the poor kid freaks out every time she sees her stitches. So we’re still dealing with the hard, but less so. And I’m still fearful that somehow the recovery won’t go well, even thought that appears to be totally unjustified.
And I have to say, I have always wanted to take a tap class, if only to wear the shoes. The idea of wearing tap shoes makes me smile. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
.-= Amber´s last blog ..Why I’m a Censoring Censorer =-.
Tap dancing?!? How cool is that? That’s the definition of Bad Chick Daisy, if you ask me.
@Gina – Wouldn’t brandy breath be better than deodorant breath? Maybe?
The Hard –
– work (what else is new?)
– the mornings are darker now, which makes it So Hard to wake up early. I’m already dreading winter.
– ittybiz stress and I’m having difficulty finding the time to do the things I need.
The Good –
– the Hubs is cleaning the bathroom as I type this. Woo hoo!
– great calls with clients – they are all such cool people. Love. Them.
– little inklings of ideas brewing (come on, baby, come out from hiding!)
.-= Victoria Brouhard´s last blog ..When Selves Collide =-.
I know you use some kind of dictation software Havi, so I thought you would appreciate this.
I am using Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is an automatic dictation software to chat with my sister on Skype. (I just speak into the mic and it types).
I explained to her that I was using the dictation software and when I looked up to see what it had typed, it had just called itself: Dick Tatian
I think we’ll keep the name lol.
Kathleen
The Okay Horse and This Orator sound like they might be just one guy.
Add me to the list of folks jealous of tap dancing!
The hard this week-
Having so many ideas about what to do I can’t manage to do any of them. I’m also swimming in information overload what with all the blogs, e-books, teleclasses, etc. etc.
Feeling distant from a community that once was very useful to my own personal development. It seems like I might be outgrowing them because I’m not finding the spark of inspiration there these days.
The good this week-
Cleaning off my desks (I have two. Probably part of the problem! But they’re both clean now.)
Purging files.
Feels like I must be making room for something big and new to come in.
First snow flurries of the year. Beautiful flakes coming down.
Hubby is home after two weeks traveling for work and now he and son are on a school trip. I’m enjoying some quiet time at home.
.-= Liz´s last blog ..Do-Overs and High-Fives: Didja miss me? =-.
The Hard:
Still coping with being separated from my husband, but I’m still comfortable with letting him take a little more time to center himself again.
Exhaustion.
SUPER PANIC MODE on almost all the time.
The Soft:
I got your Destuck, Dissolve Procrastination, AND Recession call within a few days of each other! GLEE!
Listened to the Quick Calm last night before bed and had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages.
Mere fractions of days and I already feel a difference.
Thank you, O Lovely Piratical Queen!
Oh, boy. The hard: H1N1. All four of us went down. And one of the cats spent three days sneezing and coughing. And the dog got an infection in her eye.
Also hard: I think I didn’t get this freelance writing position that 1) I really want and 2) our family finances could really use. The uncertainty is unsettling.
The good: We’re all feeling better, mostly. The fevers are gone. The coughs are abating.
Also good: Looks as if my husband is going to land another client, yay.
Also good: I got the braces off my teeth this week, although I had to do the eight basic Shiva Nata positions in my head during part of the process to keep from bolting out of the chair. And now I never have to have braces ever again, which is very very good.
Also, @Shannon Henry: Sad Pickles is an awesome name for a rock band. Even if it’s just one guy.
I’m going to Chicken the last 1.5 weeks, because it’s all been one unit for me.
The Hard:
A week and a half ago, I learned that my sweet, kind, and gentle aunt would not be with us much longer. She had battled cancer for several years. She had been fine a few weeks ago, but took a sudden turn for the worse. The doctors said she had two weeks.
The Good:
My friends moved heaven and earth to get me out there to see her. They have been hugely supportive.
Very Good & Very Hard:
Having a chance to say goodbye.
More Hard:
She died two days ago.
Extra Bonus Frustration:
She died one week after her doctors said she had two weeks to live. Three weeks before her death, her doctors said she was fine and that her body was strong. (Thanks, guys. Really appreciate the accurate prognosis. Totally helpful.)
Good:
She passed peacefully in her sleep. She was slightly uncomfortable during her last few days, but she was never in any pain. She was not afraid. She had made her peace with it and was ready to go. She was looking forward to going to Heaven. She died at home in her own bed with the man she loved right beside her.
The Hard:
It’s so hard for my uncle. They had been married for over thirty years, and they were so in love. Total, absolute, fairy tale true love.
I kind of hesitate to submit what may well be the most depressing Chicken ever. But it helped me to write it. Maybe it will help someone to read it. Maybe it will help people remember to live for today. Thanks, Havi, for creating a space where we can share these kinds of things.
.-= Serendipity´s last blog .. =-.
Yay for rainbows and passion! I have to admit, the planning of vacations is one of my favorite parts of them – I know almost exactly what to expect by the end of the process and I get the lovely anticipation for months.
The Hard:
-my voice was in pain from having the flu last week, which meant no voiceover practice or auditions.
-my Dad’s entire department was not funded and he and his people-for-whom-he-feels-responsible were laid off.
-I realized (based on a Havi thing, actually) that I have rejected being a teacher (which I’m good at) because my Mom is a teacher and I don’t want to be any more like her than I already am. I am not sure how to feel about this, but right now, I’m leaning toward guilt.
The Good:
+in one month, I’ll be on a week-long Disney cruise with my hubby and kids! They have child care for both kids and I will actually get hubby time on the family vacation!
+I bought a new microphone that should work really well with my voice and I’m actively looking around for used recording gear so I can finish setting up my home studio. Not giving up on this!
+the husky voice was proclaimed to sound like Jessica Rabbit, so there was some upside.
+I got brave and talked to yon hubby about planning to quit my job and he not only did not freak out or act disappointed, he offered to distribute my resume to all of his contacts. Relief!
+My Dad has rights of retention to a job he previously held with his employer (a county in Florida), so will likely be able to finish out his 30 years and keep his benefits and retirement, albeit with a lower salary.
Way more good in general – I’m feeling lucky.