Work

So, as you know, I had picked up a contracting job starting in July working for a female VP I'd worked for last November. Didn't have a choice but to accept the assignment as I was on unemployment. I knew going in it wouldn't be a fun job, but it got me off the dole.

It was absolute hell. Her psychopathic tendencies had gotten worse since the last time I worked for her. Completely unforgiving of any mistake made, and typical female of talking about it to everyone but me about it.

She didn't like anyone in the first round of interviews she did, so another round was pulled in. She did find someone she liked, so she hired her. The gal started on October 3 and walked off the job that Thursday while I was at lunch. The VP blamed me, when in fact it was her fault. She had originally agreed to give me two weeks of overlap so the new gal could have one week to do all her training, then one week to learn the company's ways. She then proceeded to dump everything on the new gal.

I had a long talk with HR about this. When the new gal came on, she was the eighth admin the VP had in 17 months. HR was unaware it was that many until I pointed it out. When she walked out, all he'll broke loose. I got blamed for her walking out, the VP cost me another job within the company, and it just got really messy. Then I got forced out with no time to transition to anyone.

The Monday after I was forced out, I got the call about the new job. I'd interviewed for the same job back in May. They couldn't decide between me and the guy who got got it, so they were happy to hear I was available again. Interviewed that Friday, got the job the following Monday, started the Monday after that.

The new company is a health insurance company. They have an IT department of 160 people, from the CTO on down, including contractors and me. The CTO has his own admin, and she has her hands full just dealing with him. I work with the six directors, the enterprise architect, 13 managers and everyone else. I do calendars for five directors and two managers. I'm helping them get organized by doing all their filing. A couple I'm doing some coaching work with because they are drowning in email and voicemail.

There are days I'm busy and days I'm bored. When I'm bored I'm working on myself. Keeping track of issues that bubble to the surface, what I really want in my life, all of that.

I've noticed in the last couple weeks that issues are starting to come up at a faster pace. Little things will trigger past memories which surface something to be worked on. Lots of tapping and timeline work to be done.

The felines are finally starting to get along. Charmin is starting to mellow out. She even asked, per se, Kona to play with her the other day. They have been chasing each other around the house. Char has gotten more playful, chasing and batting toys all over. This gives me hope that one day they will truly be sisters. It's taken 10 months to get to this point, we've got time.

Monthly update

So, what's happened in the last month?

Well, I applied for an IT job where I've been temping. It's for desktop support, going out to people's desks and imaging machines, fixing things the Support Center can't fix, and helping users learn how to use their computers correctly.

I'm so good at it, the desktop tech in my building has asked me to help him get another department's computers set up and running because he's behind on his work. All I'm really doing is babysitting the machines as they image, then setting up the monitors, etc.

Here's the funny part. I hadn't even applied yet and a collegue sent a recommendation to the department manager. Then, when I told the VP I'm working for that I applied, she asked for the manager's name and his boss's name, and she fired off a recommendation for me. And the department manager I'm setting up the computers for tomorrow knows the hiring manager and is willing to send a recommendation for me helping them out.

If I don't get the desktop support job, the Support Center also needs people and would consider hiring me as well. One way or another I'm getting out of the admin world.

Meanwhile, next week Friday they interview four hopefuls for my replacement. See if they fare any better than the last four that interviewed and were all turned down.

In working for the VP, she had asked me to order a book. She thought the name was Hardball. So I searched and found two, one of them was Hardball for Women. Had that and another sent to work, wasn't what she was looking for - it was Moneyball.

I've been reading through Hardball for Women, and what an eye opener. I thought I understood gender communication differences after going through the Alison Armstrong material. Not even close.

Hardball for Women exactly explains what happened to my boss during the software licensing. As I read the book, I was dumbfounded by what the author, Pat Heim, talked about, and how much sense it made in retrospect to my own life. It also explains a lot about the current VP's behavior and my own reactions the first time I worked for her.

I would highly recommend this book to women who are having a hard time rising in the ranks or don't understand their male, and sometimes female, bosses.
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Life moves on at home. Cats are still having issues, even after we sat down with the animal communicator I work with. Charmin is so full of anxiety the only way she knows how to cope is to run away. I'm thinking I need to get really specific with the tapping and do the full gamut series to help her let go of the anxiety and fear.

I need to work on the full gamut series on me as well. I've really fallen off the wagon and am back on the sugar big time. It's like I got one part cleaned up, now another has popped up. So I'll take that on and deal with it.

Tai chi has become just as much about self defense as it is about tai chi. When protection came up for me, Frank started pulling out more self defense stuff and how to apply the moves in tai chi to those situations.

I mentioned to him last week that I wanted him to pull together a class for my kids. He's at least aware of it now (the Boy never told him when I asked about it over a year ago... !@#$%^&&!!) Especially now that the oldest started college this week, I would feel better if they had some awareness and a bit of practice in protecting themselves.

The photo safari day was a success. S drove the Benz she wants, I drove a Cadillac Escalade. Everything else I looked at was either too small or too big. Then we looked at her Tiffany's engagement and wedding rings. We stopped at Scheherazade and found my engagement ring - just need to swap out the 2 carat diamond for a sapphire and it's perfect.

Both of us needed reminding that a day like that should be an everyday thing. We both can easily manifest the little things, like a parking spot, things like that. The big stuff, or what feels like it should be big stuff, is what we have problems with. As the day went on, I realized that we need to make the "BIG" things into everyday things. That's how we

More changes

Time for my monthly update.

I picked up a contract a couple weeks ago that will run for at least the next eight weeks at higher than my normal rate. That's because it's for the same female VP I worked for last November. Yes, the one who within minutes of meeting me emailed HR that I wasn't going to work out, then sucked up to me when I left.

The reason I'm back is the woman she hired as her admin quit. The admin couldn't take the BS and the pressure of the VP's judgements and backstabbing, not to mention arranging things for the VP's son's prom, birthday and graduation.

For me this time around it's about judgement and compassion. It's about her judgement of me, that even in asking to bring me back, she told HR that I was not to be considered for the full time position. It's also about my judgements of her, of how she looks at the world given her upbringing and life. Most of all, it's about my own judgements of myself.

One thing that has continued to come up over my lifetime is that I'm not good enough. This VP throws that into my face so squarely I can't avoid it. At the same time I have other admins who are looking at what I know, how fast I'm picking things up, and they are amazed at what I can do. On one hand I have someone who believes I'm not good enough to work for her long term, and she's unwise enough to put it in an email I can easily find. On the other hand I have people who are amazed at what I know and can do, and many more people who do know what I can do, and can see the potential I can't.

Who do I believe? This is one case where the majority outweighs the few, or the one.
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Had a few other things go my way. My next door neighbor had been griping about getting things cleaned up now that the new siding is up and the gas lines have been installed for the grills. I built a small concrete block extension onto my patio slab so I could put a gas grill out there. In cleaning that up, I had to move the air conditioner I've had sitting outside for the last eight years. I plugged the unit in and it worked! I asked for some help to get it installed, and we did, right before the boiling heat wave hit. I was able to keep the place cool enough so I could sleep.

Now, if I can just get out of my own way when it comes to tai chi...

Protection

Tuesday was a tough day for me. Summer solstice, acupuncture appointment and tai chi. Add to that constant thoughts of my parents not protecting me from stuff, and yeah, long day.

What I came to realize was that the people responsible for protecting me from harm, my parents, siblings, aunts and uncles and other relatives, were in fact the ones causing the most harm. Abuse came from all angles and in all shapes and forms. Some of the worst of it came before I could even recognize it for being abuse, let alone do anything to stop it from happening.

Here's the kicker. Now that I'm into tai chi and bagua flow and really need my hips and back to be loose and fluid so I can fight effectively, the abuse has my hips, hamstrings and feet so tight I can't move correctly. I literally need to physically stretch and emotionally release what is stuck in those areas so I can move again.

I'm starting to see how blessed I am that the Boy's dad agreed to take me on as a student. There are a couple reasons. One is that he's been a professional fighter, so he know not only tai chi and tae kwon do, but boxing and street fighting as well. Tonight we worked on basic boxing skills, like how to stand, where to put my hands, how to throw a jab and a reverse punch, how to put my entire body into it. Another is that he was a cop and bodyguard, and even now in his 70's still takes on personal protection jobs. He's teaching me the absolute basics, and I'm already making the ties back to tai chi.

Most importantly, he's willing to teach me the things, both directly and indirectly that my parents couldn't, wouldn't, or didn't even know how to teach me. Those are the most valuable things.

Meanwhile, I'm exhausted. I was sweating up a storm while trying to get my body to correctly throw those punches. I rode Chael out, so I'm also chilled from the ride. Add in using muscles I haven't used in a while and ouch. The electric mattress pad is on so I can climb into a nice warm bed for a good nights sleep.

Changes

We're in the middle of two solar and one lunar eclipses, and boy does it show.

Communications are up all over the place. Friday I was reading Carole Hyder's book "Conversations with Your Home" and clearly heard my condo start talking to me. We finally settled on a name - Abundant Amore. I've been trying to name this place for years and nothing stuck. Abundant Amore seems to fit, the place likes it, good enough for me.

Yesterday the cable was on the fritz. The sound came through just fine, and it wasn't the TV's fault, there was just periods when no picture came through. Finally got online with a cable rep and they reset the cable box so the picture came through.

Still not much on the job front. Ran out of state benefits so now I'm on tier one of the federal benefits.

Crocheting up a storm in between. I've finished 5 baby blankets, four washcloths, and a scarf for Project Warm Hearts. I finished Thing 1's graduation afghan and started Thing 2's afghan. I'm also working on a light weight cardigan for myself - something I can put on over a tank top or t-shirt and have it be classy enough for a business casual or dress environment.

I also cut my hair the middle of May. Big deal, you say? It is when the tail is 16" from the nape of your neck to the end of the tail. I've had it long for years, and have been threatening for the last two to cut it off. After bringing Chael home from storage this spring, I made up my mind. It took me 15 minutes and lots of detangler to get the knots out, and that was that.
Here are the before and after shots.



Cats are still working out their issues. Discovered on a really stormy day that Charmin was afraid of lightening storms. The pictures she shared with me were that she was dropped off at the shelter on a stormy day, and it was still storming when they took her kittens. So we did some tapping on that during the storm to lessen her fear. It seems to have worked.
I've also discovered Charmin is hard of hearing in one ear and has limited sight in one eye. That's why she likes things to move slowly, so she can keep track of them. When Kona gets a bug up her butt and tears around the house at top speed, Charmin is startled cause she doesn't see/hear her coming, so she strikes out.

I'm looking at adding another martial art to my tool box. BaguaFlow is another of the three internal martial arts, tai chi being another, and I'm not remembering the third at the moment. It's being taught by a gal who learned it to help her with her skydiving acrobatics.
I'm interested in it for the energy flow and bo staff. I've been to her intro workshop and one class. I can feel the energy flow in her class, unlike tai chi where there isn't any flow, yet. I also wanted the bo staff work, as I've been attracted to staff work for years, along with sais.
We worked with the bo yesterday. The instructor was amazed at how fast I picked up the mechanics. What I need to work on is the whole body integration - that when one body part moves the whole body moves. Stretching is another, to get my hamstrings and hips opened up so they can move smoothly and freely along with the rest of me.
Thankfully her classes are not that expensive - $12 a week. I'll probably only go every other week for a while, see what happens.

Meanwhile, keep the faith that whatever is happening is supposed to and will resolve itself in it's time.

Aha's

Been an interesting week.

The reduction in force layoff happened at the place I was doing software licensing at. My boss was one of the casualities, as was the idiot VP above her. I have no idea what will happen to the IT asset management project.

I emailed her hubby, so he forwarded it to her. After our last conversation where I warned her she was being set up for a fall, she started preparing this. She's ok with it as she was ready for a change. Try being a stay at home mom for a while. We will try to get together in a couple weeks when they have settled into their new schedule.

I had an interview at a local health insurance company yesterday. The IT department of 150 people has one admin and she focuses on the VP. The other six directors are having issues because they have no support. The position is from now until the end of the year, possibly longer depending on how things go. Find out next week if I get it.

As for the aha... That came about due to several things coming together. No such thing as a coincidence...

On Thursday I met with a gal who graduated two years ahead of me in high school. Neither of us us fit in due to our intuititve talents and being abused at home. She's since gone on to be a successful writer and life coach. She channeled some info for me, helped me get a better idea of what I need to be doing.

Today I went to the World Tai Chi & Qigong Day event at Normandale Community College. There were demos of different styles and breakout sessions. One of the sessions was on superconscious energy and thinking. I liked what I heard so I bought his book. When I got home I started reading it. One of the sections in the book is on goal setting.

I read that, and out of quiet of my mind came I don't set goals because if I succeed people hate me and abandon me. It's happened twice in my life, when I got my FFA State Farm Degree and when I graduated from college. I'm fine on the small things, living day to day. But on the big stuff, jobs, finances, love, I've been sabotaging myself because when I succeed people leave me.

Wow. Just wow. Huge aha. Explains a whole lot of my life.

The good news is I've realized this now, when I can still do something about it. I can work on changing the energy of this, do EFT to clear it out of my system and program in new ideas, and go forwards from here.

Tap, tap, tap

So, yeah... MIA for a while again.

Had an in-person interview for a month long (possibly longer) temp job last Thursday. They wanted to fill the position as soon as possible, have nae heard boo so I presume I didn't get it.

Saw Dr. R last week. What he is seeing in me is resistance. My level of resistance has come down from an 80-90% level while I was working down to a 30-40% level now. He thinks my resistance needs to come down even farther before a new job or contract will come forward.

How have I been working on that resistance? A method of energy psychology called meridian tapping, also know as Emotional Freedom Technique. I've known about EFT for a long time, but it never felt right to use it before now.

I've hit a place with my weight loss where I'm actually re-gaining weight. I started looking at options that I already had access to, wouldn't have to spend any money, or very little on, and could do myself. I've been using Learning Strategies paraliminals to deal with the belief issues, new options, new behaviors, etc. That's been helping some what.

So I started looking at what else was in my tool box. In one of my email accounts I came across an ad for the World Tapping Summit, which was supposed to be 11 days of tapping on different issues. I missed most of the summit, but I did pick up the book they were offering and DVD at half off. They also sent along some free ebooks on tapping in general, for weight loss and pain reduction.

I started with what the ebooks had for directions. There were a couple scripts to follow that I was able to use, then create my own scripts from there. That's helped with some of the bigger issues. Then the book and the movie showed up and gave me more ideas to work on.

Several of the things that have come up I've turned to mind mapping to help with. It seems on the big issues there is what I think is the main issue, then there are sub issues. I'm discovering there are sub and sub sub issues to the sub issues - ie a whole lotta layers. By mind mapping the top issue, then I can take each sub issue and map that out, then map out anything else that needs attention. I'm slowly whittling away at all those issues.

I've been hitting things hard one day, then taking a day or two off before going at it again. Give my brain and body time to adjust to the new normal before I clear again and make another new normal. Days I'm not tapping I'm trying to read my tai chi books and get a better handle on that. Or reading fan fiction to completely clear my head and change state.

I've also been trying tapping on the cats. Charmin still has her days of hissing any time she sees Kona. If she's in my arms when the hissing starts I start tapping on her right then and there. I can get some of the points on her, then do the rest on me. It seems to be helping with her attitude and coming out of the office.

The last couple nights I've found Charmin sleeping out on the couch. Came out of a really bad dream about a cat this morning, couldn't see Kona so I went searching for Charmin and there she was. She let me pet her and started purring as the tears came along with the sneezing & allergy fit. She was still on the couch when I got up this morning.

One thing that has been annoying with the tapping and paraliminals is that I'll have an emotional breakthrough and/or connection on something and my body will go into a sneezing fit and allergy attack. I'll have the aha moment, within a minute I'll start sneezing, then my left eyeball starts itching and my nose runs. I don't get it.

Well, on some level I do. I have used dis-ease, primarily allergies, to get me out of things in the past. The fuel oil reaction was in response to my first long term relationship crumbling. The corn intolerance developed after Mom died. The wheat intolerance may have developed early on in response to my inability to communicate my needs or that communication and needs being ignored.

Throw in a death wish, that I wasn't supposed to even be born this time around and bam, you got a doozy to deal with. One piece of the puzzle at a time.

I'm still here

Yes, I've been off the radar for a while. Between being sick, not having any energy and just not willing to sit down at the computer long enough to rip something off, no posts. I'm back.

Yesterday I made Charmin an official member of the family. Signed the paperwork and gave up $214 to keep her with me. Yee-ouch on the fee, I just wanted to be done with this particular group.
Then I splurged a bit and bought her a new bed and a couple toys. She loves the toys, the soft balls with colored foil coming out of them. She wasn't sure about the bed at first, I found her using it earlier this morning.

Charmin is starting to overcome her shyness and come out of the office. I had company Saturday night, so I was cooking most of the afternoon. She was out in the kitchen sniffing at what I was making and asking for treats. When my friend came in, she stayed out, let S pet her, lounged on the carpet in the living room like she owned the place.

Kona... There are days when that one can be exasperating. If I wake up 4-5 am and she notices I'm awake she'll come butt her head on my hand and will purr away as I gently scratch and fluff her. She'll nibble on my fingers and be just a good cat. Later in the day she'll be racing around the house, from her perch in the living room through the dining room to the bedroom or into the tub and back again. She'll roll around and dig in the tub for 15 minutes at a time, and if I get down and fluff her, she'll complain as she purrs. If Charmin comes out, she'll chase her back into the office (which got Kona solitary in my bedroom for an hour last night). Silly feline.

They will get into hissy and growly fits at each other, especially if Kona invades the office. Charmin has slapped at Kona once, so Kona's learned to stay out of paw reach. Both will look at me like 'make her stop!' They will figure it out eventually.

Still no work. Nothing brewing on that front even with both the IT and admin sides of the staffing company looking for me. I'm starting to get that itch that I want to go back to work, but there's more I need to do here at home before I'm truly ready.

I also need to set some intentions around work this time. With the reduction in force (RIF) happening where I was doing software licensing at, my chances of going back there right now are slim. If my former boss survives this RIF she wants to do Six Sigma on software licensing and move to a different team. If those things happen then I might have a chance to go in as a contractor and then do the permanent.

But do I want to be somewhere permanently, or do I want to continue to do contracting and freelancing? I just don't know. I want the stability of permanent and a regular paycheck with the flexability and time off of contracting and freelancing.

Something else I'm considering is putting up a wind turbine (or five or seven) on my farm land. There's a company that helps finance and get clearance for wind turbines for farmers, schools and other businesses. The turbine I'm looking at is $268k. If I get it up yet this year, there are federal rebates that would kick back about 30% of that cost.

There are some hoops I would have to jump through, like putting a meter on the land and perhaps building a small hunting shack so I could sell back the excess energy to the local rural electric coop (REC). It benefits me by providing another income source off the land. It benefits the REC by giving them a green power source to help them meet their goals. I'd like to put up at least five turbines along the fence line, one every quarter mile. I could put up a couple more along the roads as well, for seven or eight total.

I need to look at the money issues and how much average wind is out there. I can finance the turbine with a mortgage on the land, which will bring the land value up. How much the retail rate is from the REC is another factor on the mortgage payment.
All things to contemplate.

Hack hack cough cough

I don't like being sick. Thankfully I don't come down with anything more than once every 3-4 years. Evidently it's my time to be under the weather with something. My intuitive sense says this is a combination of whatever the current bug is running around, latent stuff being flushed out of my kidneys, and my willingness to take on an upper respiratory so the cats didn't have to. So yeah, I'm sick.

I'm not the only one. My tai chi teacher called me last night to call off tonight's class. He's got the hacking cough I do and his wife won't let him out of the house. Wise woman.

All of this seems to be centered around my throat. I've had a sore throat for most of last week. Started sneezing on Saturday and it all hit on Sunday. I'm taking grapefruit seed extract and Sambucol to counter it, and will add echinacea and goldenseal if an infection starts.

Since it's all throat centered, I wonder what I'm not speaking that needs to be said?
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I'm starting to leave the door open to my office during the day. Charmin has stuck her nose out a few times and Kona has come in the office a few times. More hissing and growling ensues. Eventually these two will figure it out and get along.

Kona does not like being held. That's a problem when I need to brush her, cause she won't sit still. Doesn't help any with all the static she's carrying. I got her to sit for a minute yesterday. I kept my hand on her back while I combed her with a metal comb. Every stroke I got shocked. If that's what she's feeling, no wonder she doesn't like being brushed. I need to find a cat safe conditioner or detangler that I can leave on her that takes the static out. Time to go fish on the net.

Charmin doesn't come out much. She's found a new place to hide, so I may tear things apart and make a new nest for her back there. Something a bit more comfy than laying on papers and books.
Her eyes have finally cleared themselves up, so no more daily dosing with the ointment. Means I need to make time to spend with her, play with her, bring her out of her shell.
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Lo and behold, Thing 2 came through with an emailed list of dates for consideration for all of us adults. There are some conflicts, so they will have to figure that out. At least we have something to work from through the end of summer - it's a step in the right direction.

Another week, another cat

So this bundle of white is Charmin. She's the newest foster to the house. I apologize for the not so good pix - the poor kid has conjunctivitis - pink eye to the rest of us. I've had her quarantined in my office since I picked her up last Tuesday night. Thankfully the ointment I have to put in her eye three times a day is working - the swelling has come down, her eye almost back to normal like her other one.
She's also recovering from bite wounds. Not sure what happened at her first foster home. They had dogs and little kids, and I suspect one of the dogs got to her. She wouldn't eat for them, but she's been eating and drinking for me.

This is one of those heart breaking cases. When I picked her up to transfer to my crate to bring her home I was overwhelmed with grief and heartbreak. Once we got home and I got the office organized... wow. I picked her up out of the crate, she curled up in my arms and I sobbed. She felt like she'd been emotionally abused as well as the physical.

For the most part I've let her eat and sleep in peace for the last week. When I do come in to do meds, I pick her up and just sit and pet her for a while. Eventually she'll relax and start purring. I have to bundle her up to put the ointment in, so she stays put and doesn't shake it out of her eye.

The debate is, do I keep her or hope that she goes to someone that will have just her and appreciate that they have a really mellow lap cat.
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Still nothing on the work front. That's OK. I suspect I'm getting this time off for a reason.

What's that reason? So I can have time to concentrate on myself. Did the liver & gallbladder flush, which surfaced more anger and resentment. For the next three weeks I'm doing a kidney flush, moving not only the kidney stones and sand out, but also moving the fear as well.

Better to move this stuff now while I have the time off, cause when I do go back to work who knows when I'll get a break again? Go through an intense growth period while I have time, space and peace to process.

And yes, I do realize just how lucky I am that I get to do this and not have to juggle a job on top of it. Yes, I'm still working on the TCM nutritional guide, but I can do that when I want to - be it in the middle of the night or whenever.
The universe works the way it is supposed to.
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Now if we can just get that concept through to one of my nieces... Thing 2 was supposed to find a way for her boyfriend here in the Cities to come out and stay out there this past weekend. When she couldn't find a place for him to stay, they changed plans for her to come here. She didn't bother to ask me if she could stay until noon on Friday, and only after prompting from both her mother and I.

I laid into both kids when they got here Friday night. Lack of planning ahead, lack of respect, the lying about contacting me, lying about a whole mess of stuff.

I'm really glad, when I got my Verizon iPhone, that I paid the $5 for unlimited texting. Friday morning alone I blew through that and then some if I'd still been paying 25 cents a pop. (and yes, I LOVE LOVE LOVE my iPhone).
Between texts from his dad, her mom and her...

Saturday morning his parent and I chatted about what was going on and how to handle things moving forward. We then brought the kids in and laid things on the line. From now on everything has to be planned out ahead of time. As soon as you know, you start running things up the flag pole. I asked about prom and spring formal, graduation, any summer doings and started putting them on my calendar as we talked.

We'll see how that goes. I asked for emails to all involved so that everyone is on the same page at the same time. If I don't hear something soon about spring formal plans, I'm going to start prompting.

I didn't have kids for a reason and I still have to deal with this stuff. Oy. Preparing me for my own some day, if menopause doesn't hit first?

Now meet Kona

Meet the newest addition to the family. This is Kona, a big pouffy furball. Picked her up from P Saturday night and so far we've been getting along pretty well. Other than learning about what side of the bed to sleep on, I think we're pretty well settled.

Since she's a long haired cat, I need to look at either finding a groomer I can trade services with or buying a clippers. Come summer she's going to be boiling with all that fluff, and I'm not going to have the time or patience ever night to brush her and keep the mats down. I figure if I get her a belly and butt trim now, come summer she'll get an all over buzz cut and keep that until fall when we go back to butt and belly trims.

Other than that, not much doing. I did hear about another potential exec admin job at the last place, running from next Monday through the end of April. See what happens. Still waiting to hear on the year long one.

KK

Got a call today from the adoption coordinator I've been working with on KK. Someone wants to adopt her.

Thankfully we seem to have things under control again. Sunday I went and got different litter and a gallon of Nature's Miracle specifically for cats and went to work on the areas she'd pooped and pee'd on. I made a second box and put it right outside my bedroom door since that was where she was leaving deposits. That worked for a day or so until she did it again. So this time I put down a puppy pad over where I'd cleaned up. That seemed to do the trick - she's consistently used the box for the last 48 hours.

Some of the box issues may have to do with a sensitive nose. I have to scoop the box daily, then she will use it. If I miss a day, she misses the box.

Tomorrow at 12:30 I take her up to the adoption center and she goes home to her new family.

I am a little sad. In some ways, after losing Raini and Shad, I'm not as open to letting anyone in. I don't get as attached as I did to the first two.

Sometime this weekend I will be getting another cat. My friend P took in a cat, but the poor thing is scared of her two dogs. My house is quiet now that the construction is done, so Kola should have a better time here. Even if I do foster another cat, Kola will still be the primary cat.
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Still nothing on the work front. I am up for an exec admin job for the enterprise applications group at the company I've been at. Since that is IT, I may see if I can do some job share to keep my fingers in the software licensing. If a full time perm job opens up in licensing, I'll drop the contracting job.
Much as I hate to say it, admin jobs are a dime a dozen. There are plenty of others that can fill in. Software licensing, not so much. I created the job and can still work circles around the Boy.

Been crocheting like a mad woman and have 75% of the graduation afghan done. So far I've only had to buy one skein of yarn. I'll let it go for a few days, give my arms a rest, then start filling in between the points of the star.

Still waiting to see if unemployment will come through for me. Been three weeks with no payment, so things are getting tight money wise. Some of it is my fear of even opening the unemployment letters, waiting to find out why I'm not getting paid, or if it's a rerun of what I went through in 2008.

If I get the admin job, that starts the 14th, so I won't get paid until the 25th. OUCH. I'll find a way to survive.

One way is to start selling stuff on Craig's List. I've got a list going, time to start selling. I've got a bike carrier going out the door tomorrow. I need to get pictures of some other stuff and get that listed. If I can get some of that stuff out the door that will help tide me over until the money starts rolling in again.

Patience. This will all work out like it's supposed to. Between now and then I can beat on the Wave Master. I found one on Craig's list for $65, brought it home yesterday. Better to take out my frustration on that then on a living human being.

So it goes...

Stuff getting done, slowly but surely.

I did get the main part of the living room rearragned. Still a work in progress.

Found someone on Freecycle that wants the end and coffee tables I inherited from Mom. Those I can gladly and gratefully let go of. In letting those go, I did bring one new thing home - a scanner for my computer. If I want to I can scan in all the photos I have and ditch the paper.

I primarily bought the scanner so I can scan in issues of the Taijiquan Journal. I found them on Freecycle. Got a lot of great articles that I want to preserve. I'll scan them in so I can have them on my iPad, then give the paper journals to my instructor. He hadn't heard of the magazine before, so I know he will want to read through them. The journal is no longer printed, but there is a blog associated with the journal, so I can keep up with it that way.

KK is still having issues. The vet discovered that she had already been spayed, so while she had her open, decided to go look at her guts. KK's colon was red, and given the low good bacteria count in her gut, presuming she has colitis. The colitis could be caused by anything from allergies, blunt trauma, emotional upset, change in food, parasites, bad gut bacteria... To start we've put her on Forti-flora, which is a cat probiotic and moved her to Hills W/D food. If those work to slow things down, then she's still adoptable because it can be easily controlled. If not, we add another antibiotic to the mix and we keep trying to figure it out.

Poor kid also has no vertebrae below her pelvis. Even Manx cats have a vestigial tailbone. She doesn't have anything holding her together below where her sacrum holds the pelvis. It's not an issue at the moment, but could be as she gets older.

Meanwhile, nothing on the work front. I'm OK with that for now. Still got a lot to do around here with cleaning and moving stuff out so new stuff can come in. Two or three things out for every one new thing in.

And getting the graduation afghans started. Hard to believe the oldest one will graduate from high school in May. So I have spent some time getting her afghan started. Thankfully she wanted the same colors as the wedding afghan I did last fall, so I can use that yarn up before I buy more.

Half way through January

I'm starting to get a better handle on where my hours go and what causes me to not get things done. Back in October I had picked up a book called '168 Hours: You have more time than you think' by Laura Vanderkam. I made time to read it and modified her weekly hour tracking to fit me.

What a wake up. I realized where most of my hours are going, and it's not to a worthy cause, it's a time waster. Now, granted, I did get about 20 hours in on the TCM ghostwriting project Wednesday through yesterday, and I have many more hours to go. I have spent 90 minutes every morning meditating, at least a half hour a day walking, and Monday and Friday I did my primal exercises to start regaining some muscle mass.

Still, I've got some holes to fill in the schedule. I have realized that I need to take my to do list and actually block off time on the schedule to do those things. I want to work through Calling in The One - that needs a two hour block per day for a while. There's cleaning to do - make that a half hour block between other reading or working blocks to get me up and moving between sitting on my duff. Same thing with tai chi, take a half hour a day to work on that.

What are my priorities and how do I fit them all in? And what happens if I get an assignment of a day, a week, or if the full time perm software licensing comes through? I'll face that when I get there.

I've come to recognize that this is the year of allowing for me. I'm allowing the stuffed emotions to come to the surface so they can be dealt with and let go. I'm allowing the resistance to abundance to let go so the money can start rolling in. I'm allowing myself to explore the dark side - I can't truly know the light until I've been in the dark. I'm allowing me to find out who I am.
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KK is at the vet for her spay appointment. Had to haul her in Thursday because her diarrhea didn't stop and she became really bloated. The vet was thinking she might have some bacterial issues in her gut, so she's getting antibiotics for that. Took a sample in so they can test, and she'll be getting other antibiotics as part of her surgery today. Between the oral and the penicillin shot, hopefully that will take care of the issue. If not, keep loading her with probiotics, eventually the good stuff will win.

Time to go shuffle the living room while KK's safely tucked away elsewhere. Perhaps some before and after photos tomorrow or Monday.

Breathing room

So, the last assignment is done and I now have some free time. Time to free up some more space and get stuff out of here that no longer serves me.

Case in point: went surfing through Freecycle this weekend. Originally I was looking to see if anyone was giving away their cat(s) like when I picked up Tabby and AB last year. Didn't see anything, but they did refer me to Petfinder.com. So I went looking there. A couple rescue organizations needed foster homes, so I put in a couple applications to be a foster mom. One called me a couple hours later asking if I could take one from a shipment they were getting that night. Sure, I can do that, still have litter and food from AB.

I came home with a young female Manx I first thought was named Kemble. On her tag it says Krumble. I am not calling a cat Krumble, so I've nicknamed her Kay or KK. She's a good girl so far. We've had some digestive upset as the crap they were feeding her previously works out of her system and the good stuff kicks in. I'll add some aloe juice to her water to help her along.

She does know a few commands. She understands that 'hop up' is permission to come up to the bed or onto my lap. Hasn't quite figured out 'down' yet, but she's getting there. She also stops whatever she's doing if I tell her no. One thing we really need to work on is where the proper place to scratch is. She hasn't quite warmed up to the Emery Cat I bought her.

When I got her home the first thing I did was trim her nails. A couple of them were almost curved back into her pads, so that couldn't have been comfortable. They are now much shorter and blunt. Still, my jeans, comforter, rugs and carpet are not approved scratching devices. So along with the Emery Cat I also bought catnip spray and a spray to tell her where NOT to be. Entice her to where she can go, discourage her from where she shouldn't. And if she turns out to not care about catnip, well, the other spray will point her in the right direction.

Another thing I found on Freecycle was someone looking for a massage table. I've had the one I bought at Costco sitting in the closet since 2007 when I stopped doing shares. It's not doing me any good, it's holding space for something that's not going to happen again, and there are too many memories attached to that table. So I gave it away. That made room in the closet for my massage chair and the Body Cushions. Sweet.

There are several things I'm going to put out on Freecycle, see if they go. If not, to ARC they go. I also need to make a run to Ocean Tech to drop off a couple dead computers and CD players. Ocean Tech will, for $5 each, wipe the hard drives on the computers before they recycle them. Works for me, more clutter out the door in a responsible manner.

I've also got some plans in my head on how to re-arrange the furniture in the living room. It's been the same way for the last 14 years. Time to shake some things up. Most of it isn't a huge move - swap the love seat for the couch, move a couple book shelves, move the TV. Most of it will make conversation easier, cause right now it's not a comfortable place to sit and talk.

Then I'll tackle the 'other' office area behind the couch. Turn the desk around, or move it to a more favorable feng shui direction. Move more bookshelves, the pantry with the yarn, the empty freezer...

Then it's to clean out the main office, get that down to basics again. Move into the bedroom, clean that up, find matching night stands, maybe even move things around.

In other words, spring cleaning has hit WAY before spring is here. Might as well do it now while I have time. The last time I cleaned like this was when I landed the software licensing... Do a bang up job this time and I might get the job permanently. Or another opportunity might come along.

Time to have some breakfast, or lunch... I suppose I should eat... or not...

Integration

Well... just got home from a visit with Dr. Rory.

I've set an intention for this time off from work to give full rein to the grief I've been denying for years. We're between a full lunar eclipse that happened on the winter solstice and a full solar eclipse on January 4. It's a time of huge changes for most people. If you chose not to change, to be stiff and unyielding, you will pay for it with lots of pain.

My grief came up loud and clear while I was on the table. He poked a couple places in my back and I was sobbing. I told him I was working on letting go of not only my fears but all my hopes and dreams as well. I have to let go of the grief that's been pushed aside and stuffed away to let go of the weight.

He's not the first to comment on my grief. My acupuncturist did as well. During our last session she put a needle into a point on my left wrist that had been hurting. It zinged all the way to the end of my finger. The point she hit is on the heart meridian, which is loaded with grief.

He saw my Open Hearts pendant. My gift to myself this year was this pendant. I bought it for myself as a reminder that I can't let anything new into my life if my heart isn't open. I also can't let anything out, either. If I want to make new choices, the old choices have to go.
Open hearts, open circles, spirals. The dark feminine is coming to the fore.

Rory told me that 2011 is a year of connection, desire, understanding. What he called the dark hag of desire is coming up, the things we desire in our lives are coming to the front and demanding attention. We can either consciously chose to bring her into the light or ignore her and she will come up when she damn well wants to. I choose to bring her up now, to gently coax her into the light so we can work together on my terms.

He also pointed out we have two balls in our lives, one rubber, one glass. Our rubber balls are our careers, our jobs. If we let them drop we can bounce back and re-define ourselves. How many times have I changed careers?

Our relationships with each other are glass. Especially this year, if we let these drop they will shatter beyond repair. Some are already cracked before they fall, they may be able to be healed. Those already in free fall will break this year. Some people may not realize their relationships are in free fall and will try to hang on, only to watch them shatter anyways.

I suspect there will be a lot of divorces and business partnerships dissolving this year. And if they don't dissolve, the death of one of the partners because they chose not to change or adapt to the new energy.

See what the acupuncturist has to say tomorrow, and my Quantum Touch instructor on Thursday. It's going to be an intense week.

A week to the holiday

Bah humbug.

No, that's not for the season, just for the over commercialization. I'm avoiding the malls as much as possible, and since I don't have to buy gifts for anyone, not much of an issue.

Went to see my therapeutic coach instructor Monday night since I couldn't seem to solve my parts issues. One of the first things out of her mouth was that I'm trying to do too much, hence why nothing seems to get done. I need to focus on one thing, give it time to integrate, play with a limited amount of other things, then go back to the focus subject.

In other words, pick one thing and stick with it. So I'm choosing to focus on the tai chi, as that feeds not only my head, but my heart and body as well. The rest will just have to wait.

The other thing that has me wondering is the integration time. Just how much time do I need to give my brain in order to integrate what I've learned? It feels like I'm spending a lot of time in idle when I should be doing things. Perhaps I really do have that much to integrate.

A week from today is the DoJoKo holiday party. Weather is supposed to be good, so everyone should be able to make it this year. The party room is reserved, I can borrow the projector from work, encourage Jones clan to bring their latest games and controllers and go from there.

I'll do some baking on Friday and Saturday, stuff that John and I can have that's low carb. Dig out the almond and coconut flours and other good stuff.

Short week at work, since we have Friday and all of the following week off. See if I can find a working laptop to bring home and do some work on the sly for licensing.

And now for the snowstorm...

Gotta love winter in Minnesota. Just got through the 5th snowiest blizzard in recorded weather history. The worst was the Halloween blizzard in 1991 with 28", this one had 17.1" officially. Some friends in Savage, about 20 miles south of me, had 22", where I have about a foot in my backyard, not including the drifting.

With the snow comes the subzero cold. A high today of 3 degrees F with an overnight low of -14. Brrr. At least the heat is keeping up and it's comfortable in here.

And as it's storming outside, it's storming inside. Went to see an acupuncturist Friday night that is willing to trade acupuncture for me ghostwriting a Traditional Chinese Medicine nutritional guide for her. As we went through my patient intake she noted several things and are in direct relation to what I've been noticing.

When she put the needles in me, more than energy began to flow. Thursday night my former boss and I had a discussion about software licensing and how the Boy is doing. She asked me to stop helping him keep up with the EUSR's and SR's for two reasons. One is she's afraid of legal ramifications of me not being on her payroll while I'm doing the work. The other is that the Boy isn't keeping up. Her thinking is that if he fails, then she has justification with the !@#$%!! VP to bring me back because he can't keep up. She can leverage that it's a two person job and who better to bring back than the person that knows how to do it best.

In the Boy's words from a previous conversation, let them feel the pain, that things won't change until the higher ups feel the pain. I fear that if they feel the pain he may lose his job.

As soon as I started talking about this situation, the acupuncturist picked up that I am in love with him. I told her I'm working through Calling in The One, and it turns out she has the book as well. She thinks I need to ask him where I fit into things.

Here's how this all ties together between the conversations I had with my former boss and the acupuncturist. The Boy has had very little motivation since his wife hit him with the divorce request in the fall of 2008. She took away the one thing that makes him him - his martial arts. In essence, she blackmailed him into giving up what makes him happy to make her happy. Without his martial arts he doesn't have an outlet for his energy, his feelings, so he's not whole, and it shows.

It shows in his lack of motivation at work. With as many EUSR's and SR's piled up as there are right now, I could have most of that knocked down in a week and keep it stable. He's plain and simple not keeping up. Now if that's part of his plan to get me back in, then I need to know that so I don't fight our boss on that.

It shows on his face and in his hair. Every time I see him the lines are deeper and his hair gets more and more gray. He's more salt and pepper than his dad is, and he's only 41, whereas his dad is in his 70's.

As I've been working through Calling in The One, two themes keep coming up: one is letting people see that I am vulnerable and am willing to ask for and accept help; the other is telling people what I need from them in a way that they understand and are willing to give it to me. Best way to start is to tell the Boy what I need from him, both personally and professionally.

If it works, yeah, I get what I need. If it backfires, then I've expressed my need and the Universe can act on it from there.

Heat, finally...

I believe the heat saga is finally solved. Helps when you get competent people out to do the repairs...

This morning the association had the company that maintains the boiler come out to take a look at things. The gentleman they sent out, Pat, took at look at things, took apart what Richard the plumber did a couple weeks ago, and discovered that the valve that lets the hot water into my heating lines was put in backwards. The incompetent idiot that put it in two years ago put it flowing the wrong direction.

To add to that, there was a good sized air bubble in the system somewhere in the pipes around my bedroom. Since the bleeder valve was put in on the wrong side of the shut off valve (by the incompetent idiot), bleeding the line did no good.

Pat took out the incoming valve and put it in so the hot water flows the correct direction. He then also moved the bleeder valve so it's on the correct side of the shut off valve. He confirmed that I did install my thermostat correctly so the system will now heat my unit.

He cranked up the thermostat to 80 before he left, so I'm actually starting to get some heat in the house. You have no idea of how happy I am to have heat and know that I'm not going to freeze this winter.
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I will make one last comment about the last temp job I had. The VP had asked the director to have flowers delivered to me for doing such a 'wonderful job' - gag. The director picked out a beautiful bouquet.

Pink, orange and lavender roses, dark purple and green carnations in a square glass vase with colored glass stones in the bottom. I got them last week Tuesday.

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Lots of other stuff going on. The tai chi and 'Calling in "The One"' classes are surfacing a lot of stuff, layers of onion I thought I was done peeling. Evidently not.
Several of the issues are parts issues with very similar things going on. I emailed my therapeutic coaching teacher and she has time Monday night, so I'll go see her to get some help. See if between us we can't collapse the sugar addiction, the weight plateau, not practicing my tai chi, not doing my Calling homework, not taking care of myself.

I'm also hooking up with an acupuncturist I met while I was doing the rounds of BNI groups. She wants help writing and editing a nutritional e-book and is willing to trade acupuncture for writing. Now we just need to find a time to meet and figure out how this will work.

Gotta do something. My back, right about my heart level, hurts. I saw Dr. Rory Friday night and he couldn't get my back to move at all. Been doing a few things to loosen it up, but I can feel the energy getting stuck. I believe the acupuncture can help open up the meridians, get the energy moving so I can get beyond this. Do the qigong exercise Frank gave me to help realign my posture as well.

I feel like the bubble is ready to pop on a lot of things. Have my teacher lance the mental/emotional side, the acupuncture get the physical energy moving and the spiritual will flow into harmony.

Things are moving...

Things are moving, indeed.

As I've been writing about for a few weeks, I started Tai Chi Chaun Tuesday night with the Boy's dad. Frank has one other student currently that's been taking class from him for two years. She's OK with me starting class, so she said, because it never hurts to review the basics. And I am starting from scratch.

Learned the basic Tai Chi stance. Been working on it twice a day, 10 minutes at a time. Thankfully I have an iPad app called Zen Meditation that allows me to set timers within the meditation timer. It does a countdown so I can get into position, sounds a bell to signal the start, sounds a different bell to let me know I can lower my arms, and another bell to let me know the meditation is done. I can change the timing so as I can tolerate standing in stance longer, I can easily change the times and save them as presets for later use.

Frank is also a believer in the old school 174 move tai chi, not the 24 or 48 move versions. So I have a bit to learn yet. Duh, I just started, yes I have a LOT to learn, and hopefully he'll be around for many more years to teach me.

I did poke the Boy on Tuesday when I was over in his building about starting his practice up again. Not until he's done with school in another year and a half. See if I can't prod him back when he's on break between class.

Another thing Frank asked me to do was keep a journal. Back to the iPad and another app called Chapters. One app, many 'chapters' to keep track of different writing projects. I have one journal for tai chi, one for questions for Frank as they come up, and another for as I work through the book 'Calling in "The One"'.

I've noted what has been happening in my body as I am in stance. If my eyes are closed I sway like I used to when I was regularly doing healing shares. If my eyes are open, little to no sway. One of my questions for next week is about the breathing - how am I to direct the energy as I breathe in and out? I can feel the energy moving, but not sure if it's clockwise, counterclockwise, if each of the circles can go their own direction... Yeah, lots of questions not answered so far in any of the books I have.

Thinking of "The One", got an email from them that they had scholarships available for the seven week teleclass. Didn't know if I'd get one or not, but I sure wouldn't if I didn't apply. I did get a partial scholarship for 25% off the class and the option to pay for it over three months.
I've already been working through the book, doing the assignments. I do believe, however, that attending the class will reinforce what I've already been doing. Hold me accountable for getting through it in seven weeks.

Yes, letting go of the Boy is one of the things I suspect I'll have to do during this class. Can I salvage the friendship while letting go of the roadblocks? Time will tell.