Sometimes when it rains it pours. I've had a rough couple of weeks and the stress has been building. Not just for me but for the whole staff at work. Tempers have been short. Everyone is nervous. Every word and action is over-analyzed and put through a paranoia filter. If someone says "Good morning" it is interpreted in 20 different ways. Was it meant as a put down? Were they inferring that their day was going to be good at the expense of another? Was it said sarcastically? Are they flaunting their good mood? And heaven help the individual who doesn't give a good morning greeting! My talk on coping with stress was helpful but the biggest help will be when the uncertainty is resolved and the organizational design is finished.

I've taken to carrying a mental umbrella. The rain falls and is diverted away leaving me dry. At least in a figurative way. Sadly there are some people who are too stubborn to come in out of the pouring rain. And it just keeps raining. One person is dealing with a sibling's diagnosis of a cancer that has metastasized to her brain. It is devastating. She is having a hard time coping with that news on top of all the other stresses. Another is keeping vigil by her fiance's bedside as he slips away from a terminal cancer. Hospice has arrived and she has been assisting his parents in making funeral arrangements. Another has had to get a restraining order due to domestic violence. There are a few other issues - spousal unemployment, surgery for ingrown toenails, physical therapy for a bad back, rehab for shoulder surgery, having to face the decision to euthanize a beloved pet... you get the idea. There is more than enough angst to go around.

I'm looking for the rainbow. But the sky is very grey and overcast and I don't anticipate the sun coming out any time soon. In response to the sunless days I'm making my own sunshine. I am resolved to wear only brightly colored scrubs (the black scrubs have been set aside) hopefully to brighten the environment. I'm passing out chocolate to any and all who venture into my office. It isn't life changing but I'm trying to smile at everyone even when they are growling. And mostly I'm praying. At first I prayed that I'd be able to handle the stress and that I'd survive the organizational design. Now I pray that everyone will be safe and feel valued. That may sound strange but the stress has caused some folks to engage in self destructive and risky behaviors.

As a bonus I've satisfied the Winter Scavenger Hunt 2017 prompt #20 - Include a disease.

After my presentation on stress, I went back to my office and had an instant replay in my head of all the things that went wrong, didn't connect, failed to engage, and received eye rolls. Right in the middle of that mental calliope I realized that it was just noise. I immediately turned the internal dialogue from looking at the negative to taking stock of the positives. Although I would have liked to have had more engagement I accomplished what I set out to do - make the staff aware of different coping techniques and give them an opportunity to practice some of them. So the stress presentation stressed me out but on the bright side I was able to turn off the noise in my head! I took charge and control of my thoughts. The steering wheel was in my hands and I got to decide the station and volume of the radio! Several of my coworkers have difficulties turning off the self directed criticisms. I think they must subconsciously enjoy playing the victim and if there isn't enough exterior negativity they have to provide their own internal soundtrack. As I mentioned before, we set ourselves up for failure when we insist on perfection. We will never achieve perfection but we can reach excellence. And on some days we can aim for excellence and rejoice in "good enough"!

I caught myself before it slipped out
“Don’t ask questions”
I hesitated to inquire
“Ignorance is bliss”
I wanted clarification
“Curiosity killed the cat”
Thus I sat quietly waiting
Feeling unworthy
Incapable of understanding
Not trustworthy enough
To hold the truth

Here is a little poem that speaks to the unspoken message we give to our children and especially the girls when when hush them. It addresses the Winter Scavenger Hunt 2017 prompt #15 - Use the phrase “Curiosity killed the cat”...

Why must Christianity be so hard?
I want a black and white religion
Where you follow the rules
And after death you are in paradise
Instead I have to search each face
Look for Christ in the untouchables
Find love for my enemies
Gratitude for my infirmities
Joy in my suffering
Learn that it isn’t all about me
Discover that everything is backwards
The greatest will be least
The sinner will be saved
The last will be first
And you must die to sin to live anew

This is a little free verse for the Winter Scavenger Hunt 2017 using prompt #14 - Discuss religion. So here's my discussion. Life isn't fair. If it was really fair we'd all burn in hell. Lucky for me God is so much wiser that I am. There is a grand plan for salvation and I don't have to be perfect to attain it. I just have to want it and try hard. I can get an A for effort! Striving to be perfect is a fast track to failure. Striving to be excellent is an achievable goal. God just wants us to do our best - to be "excellent to each other" to quote Bill S. Preston, Esq.

Sparky just started his new job. He is working at Lowe's as a morning "stock boy". I'm not sure what it pays but he wants to keep busy. I'm not convinced that he really likes the hours since he keeps repeating a mantra the goes like this, "These hours are perfect. I work 5 hours and still have the whole day to do other things." So far we are 3 days into the new job and I'm not a fan. He has to be at work at 4:15 AM so he is setting his alarm for 3:30 AM. Of course I wake up. He is trying very hard to be quiet and does a fairly good job. However I'm sensitive to light and the moment he turns on the bathroom light and the hall light I'm aware. For the 45 minutes from his alarm to his leaving the house, I'm awake and asleep and awake and asleep... It is like having an infant again! I'm much too old for that kind of business. Sparky is trying to adapt to his new schedule (as am I). He is now going to bed at 7:30 PM which leaves precious little time for conversations. I come home and make dinner, we eat and then he goes to bed. He is also taking a siesta after lunch.

He was out of work since November 1st. Now that he has finally landed a job and survived the drug screening, mandatory orientation, and the on the job training provided by Lyon (a young man who was hired a scant 2 weeks before Sparky) the job interviews start to come in! He had an interview yesterday and is expecting a call to schedule another one at a different company yet this week. I'm hoping that he can get a regular 40 hour a week gig.

Everything is a life or death event
Ten year old boys pretend to fight wars
And tree houses are refuges
Where girls are not allowed in
Work has not yet arrived
And age is unknown
Feign mortal wounds
Preparing
To face
Death

Today I'm giving a presentation on coping with stress. Work has been very stressful. We are all feeling the effects. In the past I was fairly confident that I had a good grasp of stress management. I was able to handle the stress with grace most of the time. There were times when stress overtook me but I had lots of good caring people around me and I survived it. And here we are in the middle of what has to be the most intensely stressful period of my work life and I am stressed and distressed. I will be giving the presentation to a group that is barely holding it together. I will discuss coping strategies that include exercise to release natural endorphins, connecting to people, connecting to nature, and meditation and relaxation techniques. I'll talk about turning off the negative internal dialogue, aroma therapy, scream therapy, and laughter as the best medicine. I will lead them in a physical exercise, a meditation, and demonstrate scream therapy. And I'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Yes I'm crazy.

Which brings me to the Winter Scavenger Hunt 2017 poem using prompts #11 - write about a tree house and #13 - write about death. This poem is a Reverse Etheree consisting of 10 lines with a diminishing syllable count. The first line starts with 10 syllables and the last line is a single syllable. Just a note about why this poem is paired with this post. As children we learn all about rejection, exclusion, fair play, and favoritism. We practice (play) and develop coping strategies for the stresses in life. I think that the people who learned from play are better able to handle difficulties as adults.

Today is Pi Day (3.14). For those of you who are not as geeky as I am, the number π (also designated as pi) is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, commonly approximated as 3.14159. This decimal representation never ends and never settles into a permanent repeating pattern. When my sons were young they would ask what was for desert. They lived to hear that we were having 3.14159. So I organized a Pi Day celebration as a morale booster for the staff. They are having a tough time and a potluck consisting of all different types of pies seems to be just the ticket on Pi Day. So far (as of Monday night) I have confirmation that staff members will be bringing: a venison pie, a chocolate pie, an apple pie, a banana cream pie, a spinach quiche, an eggnog pie, a chicken pot pie, and a strawberry pie. That is 9/20 of the staff participating. Almost 50% have let me know that they are going to contribute.

I'm going to bake my pie in my special pie plate. I got it just for this occasion. This will be the second time I've used it -

This last Saturday was another Trivia night at church. We went with our usual suspects team members - Mary and Ryan, Mary's sister and BIL (Jill & Hank), Sue, Phil, and Christy and Craig to round out the team. The theme for Trivia was "animation" and we were all supposed to dress up as our favorite animated characters. Well, Sparky and I decided to go as Minions. In fact, Mary liked the idea and so the whole team dressed as Minions! I made the Minion eyes and my costume and Sparky's hood, and put together Dr. Nefario's costume too. Ryan was Gru and Phil was Dr. Nefario. I went as an evil Minion. The categories were interesting and we did fairly well. After 6 rounds we were in 3rd place. But the 7th round killed us. The topic was Movie Release Dates. We were given a xeroxed sheet with 10 movies and we had to determine the year they came out within 2 years (before or after). They only gave us 10 minutes. We were right on with 4 of our answers but all the rest were off by 3 or 4 years. We blew it. The last 2 rounds were great and we managed to get 10 out or 10 in each of them. However it was a tight race with only a half a point separating the top 4 teams. We finished out of the money. If there would have been an award for best costumes or best food we would have been the runaway winners!

These cupcakes were too cute! Mary really went all out and made sloppy joes too! I made banana pudding with Nilla Wafers and a killer cheddar cheese dip with dried cherries on top. Sue brought sweet and sour cucumber slices and veggies and dip. Jill made Minion eyes - pretzels with blue or yellow chocolate circle irises with icing pupils. Christy made brownies with minion faces. It was all tasty!

Here is the group photo! L to R: Gru (Ryan) is on the end . Jill was the baby Minion with a teddy bear. Mary was in front. I'm the evil one strangling Christy! Sue is hiding behind Christy. The back row was Dr. Nefario (Phil) standing next to Hank, then Sparky and finally Craig. As you can see we were having a great time!!

This ceramics session has flown by. We had our last class last week and I managed to get 2 pieces back. I have 4 others that are either glazed and waiting for the glaze kiln to be fired or loaded into the bisque kiln and I haven't received them yet. This is an orb that represents pollen. I had a magazine picture of an amalgam of different pollen and I just picked one - I have no idea what plant produced it but it is pretty in my eyes nonetheless.

I glazed this one using Super T on the rounded protuberances and Oribe on the pointer ones. Again since there weren't any stilts I was forced to manually remove the glaze from each point so it wouldn't stick to the kiln shelf. The super T has a speckled appearance with the turquoise color showing up in the creases and a beautiful Kelly green with a lighter green mottled on all the rounded parts.  The Oribe was carefully applied to be every thin in hopes it would remain a minty green. I am very happy that all went as planned!

Last weekend I went geocaching with Sparky and saintvi. We managed 2 "First To Finds" also known as FTFs. That means we were the very first people to find a newly placed cache. It was lots of fun. The last cache we looked for was in the swampy area designated as the Fen. The ground was soggy and there were places where there was standing water. It might sound miserable but the sun was shining and the birds were singing. I stopped to take a couple photos of the wonderful sea of red twigs. I think they were either wild blueberries (there was a sign that warned "No Picking") or Dogwood trees (the bench had a sign "Red Dogwood observatory bench"). Either way the color in the sun was stunning.

Here is saintvi with me posing for Sparky to get a good photo. There were several that were too awful to publish - one in particular where I'm staring off into the distance with an expression that indicated there was a skunk nearby.This was the keeper!!

As the weather get warmer I hope we have more adventures together!!

I went through a decade where there was not a single pair of scissors in the house that didn't have one tip broken off. I attribute that to the presence of 2 sons who seemed to think that scissors could be used for any number of purposes unrelated to cutting paper or fabric. Though no one would admit to it, I suspect the tips were used as a screwdriver on more than one occasion. I caught one using the scissors to lever off a bottle cap. Since the boys have left the nest, I restocked my compliment of working scissors. I currently have 2 pairs of pinking shears, 2 heavy cast metal scissors (in my sewing box), an antique pair of little scissors in my embroidery box, a pair of heavy duty kitchen shears, and 4 pairs of cheap Fiskars wannabes scattered around. I also have my sacred pair of hair cutting scissors in the kit with the electric trimmers. You would think that with all these scissors around I would be able to get a thread hanging from my cuff cut off. I tried several pair of scissors and none would sever the thread. Finally I broke down and asked Sparky to snip it off. He sawed at it. He held it taut and cut and cut to no avail. Finally I was able to cut it with the nail trimmer. My mission will be to sharpen the scissors. I managed to sharpen all the knives in the house at Christmas. That was partly because we were gifting knives to the boys. Son#2 was complaining bitterly about how dull all their knives were and that they were all serrated and couldn't be sharpened... But I digress. The scissors must be sharpened. The only question is, "How?" A quick google search revealed a multitude of methods. Since I own a hone I was thinking that would be my first choice. I think however I'm going to try the aluminum foil method. I just have to fold the foil so that it is ~8 layers thick. Then using the full blade make cuts in the foil with the scissors. Supposedly this method really works. I'll let you know if I'm successful!