Pawprints From Space

Okay I confess... I have no idea how to relax, how to be "on vacation". This is only day two but I already have a full agenda for today and tomorrow. Some of it is fun (facial, massage and lunch with a friend) but then there is the committee meeting tomorrow night, yard work, the housework and other things staring back at me screaming to be taken care of. I don't know how to ignore these things. I used to. I used to be able to ignore everything and get lost in a book. I still read voraciously but I am multi -tasking when I do it: the news is on the TV or radio, I'm eating lunch, something... I think I lost the ability to be still after my husband died. I threw myself into work and now I can't seem to claw myself back out of it. I do enjoy yard work. I find it very therapeutic although it can be exhausting too. House work I hate but the laundry isn't going to do itself after all. Damn it. Wouldn't that be nice? Especially the ironing. Ick ! I'll proba...

As a kid I never liked Father's Day. Mostly because I didn't have a father around. All the other kids did but I was the only one with divorced parents and my father disappeared when I was about two years old. So that sucked growing up. As I've gotten older and it has become obvious that I'm never going to be a parent, I'm starting not to like Mother's Day. Yesterday several people wished me a happy Mother's Day. I'm sure they meant well and being older than say 12 I could very well have children so they probably figured they were being nice. I suppose it is similar to being wished a Merry Christmas when you're not Christian. The phrase simply does not apply to you. In the Mother's Day case it can actually be painful. I can't have kids. When I was in my early thirties and newly engaged I had surgery and was told if I wanted to get pregnant I'd better do it in the next year or two otherwise forget it. Well we didn't exactly jump on that...

It's the little things in life that either mean so much or annoy the heck outta you. Today we're going to talk about 10 of the annoying ones. 1. The gray area in the employee handbook that leads you to believe one thing about the departure procedures only to smack you upside the head with the reality. Trying to do things by the book and out of concern for the organization will only get you smacked by that same book, and shortchanged too. 2. There is a HUGE yellow arrow painted on the pavement indicating the direction of traffic flow. There are cars angled in the proper direction as they have parked in accordance to the traffic flow and yet somehow there is a woman in a huge SUV headed directly at you - going the wrong way despite all the evidence as to the proper direction of traffic flow - who has the audacity to look at you as if you were the one in error. And she's angry about it too! 3. People who have been told for months about the deadlines. Who have been reminded a...