just SOME blog

Oh my, is it the end of April all ready? What in the world has happened to me this month?!

I have been in a newish relationship and have been enjoying squeezing out little tiny bits of time to see my new boyfriend (swoons and giggles)

I spent 10 days house/cat sitting in a place with no internet access

I got sick and missed 4 days of work (2 of those days were a Saturday/Sunday)

I had work-related stuff to do every weekend this month (except the weekend I got sick)

I have been doing martial arts class on Tuesday nights, pottery on Wednesday nights, work on the weekends and most other evenings have had some other scheduled thingy or another

I have finally, FINALLY found renters for my house. These folks don't move in until June 1, but I've spent HOURS and hours and hours interfacing with potential tenants.

I am 2 weeks away from the end of the semester...and I'm loving being busy, and it is making me a little crazycakes, too.

Tonight I met up with my friend, Angelo, and we had milkshakes for dinner. We decided to embark on a new project for the summer. This will be the Summer Of Milkshake Evaluation (SOME). This milkshake evaluation project will get its own blog, "Just SOME Blog". There will be milkshake ratings and reviews, and we will find the best milkshakes in Boulder. Oh, yes!

on retreat

This week I'm working/living on retreat. My 3rd year class is dying, they are ending. This is their last retreat together, and my last chance to spend a bunch of concentrated time with them. I fall in love with every class. I get attached. And now our time together is coming to a close, and it is time for me to start letting go. This is the 5th year I've done this retreat.

Synchronicity keeps happening in my life lately. Here, on retreat, it is no different. Birds and fish keep popping up in various forms. I don't know if it means something, or if it is just coincidence.

Yesterday I had a fabulous experience of watching the bouncy-castle that is my mind. It was a day of silence from the time we woke up until about 8pm. Silence is such an other-worldly thing in a group of 20 people. Meals in silence, gongs indicating when it is time to sit and when it is time to walk. Conches are blown 10 minutes and 5 minutes before each sitting period. I sat 6 hours of meditation, 4.5 of which I was either the umdze (timekeeper) or gatekeeper. I love ringing the gongs, even if I'm a little out of practice. I've been more successful blowing the conch this year than anytime in the past. Everyone else dislikes this conch because the blowhole is really big. I find the big conch-hole much easier to blow.

Today, more sitting, and silence has lifted. The schedule for the rest of the week:
8am-9am breakfast (I'm waiting my turn to shower right now).
9am-12 meditation
12:30-1:15 lunch
1:15-2:30 staff meeting
2:30-4 open time or maitri space awareness practice
4-4:30 tea snack
4:30-5:30 open time or maitri space awareness practice
5:30-6:30 meditation
6:30-7:30 dinner
7:30-9 evening activity (usually a talk)

Bragging on ME

I'm on the tail end of a very full weekend and well, a full big chunk 'o time.

I am on the board of directors for a local, non-profit, independent high school and I am/was the co-chair for a major fund-raising event that took place Friday and Saturday.

We brought in a nationally known author/speaker, Dr. Michael Bradley who did a Friday night lecture ""When Things Get Crazy with Your Teen: The Why, the How, and the What to do NOW!" and a workshop on Saturday on the same topic. Friday night had a pre-talk reception with food and drink along with a silent auction and book sale, and there was a book signing after the talk.

It was a huge success and we met/exceeded our attendance & ticket sales goals for both the Friday night lecture and the Saturday workshop. We've still got to tally up all the donations and silent auction proceeds, but this is the biggest event I've ever organized and I'm feeling really great about how it all worked out.

I didn't get to hear much of the talk on Friday, but I did have "Breakfast with Mike" and 4 other people on Saturday before the workshop and sat in on one of the workshop breakout group. I thought Dr. Bradley had some good information and insights, but I was most impressed with the parents.

I feel so honored to be able to offer my skills, knowledge, and abilities to get such an event to happen so that resources are made available to the wider community. I have put in 2-5 hours per week on this event for the last 6 months and the last 2 weeks were more like 5-10 hrs/week. I'm so glad that I was part of this, and I'm really relieved that it is done!

change in season

Today is the last day of Summer, and tomorrow Fall starts. This change of season is happening whether I'm ready for it, or not.

This week has been full, Full, FULL. Work has gotten really interesting and this week I officially said yes to become the one person who will be tracking the entire implementation of the strategic plan. Me. I'm taking on leadership roles, Big Responsibility, and it feels very comfortable. I know how to do this. I realize that I've been trying to suppress ambition for a long time now, years really, I had such a big ego blow in gradschool that I think I went into defense mode and stopped reaching. Well, not stopped entirely, but limited my reach, stopped dreaming BIG.

I'm dreaming Big again, and I'm taking on a lot of responsibility. I'm also trying to pay attention to not taking on too much, not overextending myself, making sure I'm taking care of me

The fact that all this is happening at this time of seasons change, at harvest time, at the time of year where we say, "look at how much we've grown, now it's time to feast" feels right. Things have ripened and it's time to eat!

a whole day off

Today, Sunday, September 14 is my first whole day off since....er...I actually had to go look at a calendar to get the answer...September 1. Yes, I haven't had a whole day off in 2 weeks. No WONDER I'm feeling all kablooey.

Last weekend M was in town and we worked all weekend at the house. The house that should have been sold this week. And wasn't. There were lots of projects that got accomplished in the last week including moving my washer & dryer to my apartment! YAY! Cleaning the house in preparation for whatever is next. Having the furnace "cleaned and serviced". Talking to lots of prospective tenants. Finding new tenants. Hacking at 4-6 foot tall weeds (somewhat satisfying, but not yet complete). And moving more stuff to my place. Sigh. There are still lots of things that need to be put away.

My apartment is discombobulated. There are boxes to be sorted through, there are things to put away, there are things to be thrown out...things and things and things. And today I finally got to put away some of the things. The big'n'tall filing cabinet that moved temporarily into my bedroom and out of the space for the washer and dryer is now in my spare room. Stuff that was piled in the spare room is back in order again. There are still boxes of stuff in my bedroom...so many boxes.

And in the middle of all this material STUFF in my life, I've had two weeks of emotional STUFF, too. Having M back in town for several days and spending time with him was really sweet. I know why we were together for 10 years. I know why I married him. I know I still have my stuff to figure out, and that is why I'm not in a relationship right now. One of the days he was here, we went to the ranch that has most of our herd and I got to see my kids (ok, my alpacas). And Angel had a new baby and she remembered me...I think. And I cried and cried seeing my babies. And I went to a memorial service for a friend's mother. And the ex-boyfriend and I are trying to be friends. And work has been mostly back-to-back 10 minute meetings with students in which I've laughed and been serious and cried and tried to be present with each person and what they've brought to the meetings.

And there's been interesting intellectual stuff in my life the last two weeks. I'm teaching myself Hindi and being very dedicated about spending time every day on this. I'm excited to have a new project, excited by how fast I seem to be picking up the written language (I can read a lot of words even if I don't understand the meaning yet). And och, I forget how learning something new also means getting tired and hungry...my brain is WORKING. And I've been offered a really interesting project at work...the President requested me for this. Me? Me! Wow...hard to say no. Still working out the details to see if it is even possible...will give more detail if this actually happens. And I'm taking on a new leadership role at my volunteer site (I'm on the Board of Directors for a local independent high school) where I am now (starting last week) the Chair of the Event Planning Committee. And yesterday at our all-day Board Retreat I volunteered to oversee the (re-)Accreditation process that is happening this year at the school.

In order to take on new stuff, there is stuff I have to let go. And I have to recharge. I have to have down-time to take care of me. So today is a whole day off. Wheee!

letdown and crazytown

Well, the people who were going to buy the house have cancelled the contract. It is a giant bummer, but there isn't anything I can do about it right now.

I'm heading up to Shambhala Mountain Center for my work retreat (a community-building retreat). I know I'll have a good time once I'm up there, but after the very long week I've had (as of Thursday night I've worked 38 hours this week so far) I'm not excited about working 10-12 hour days for the next 3 days. I know the work that I'll do from there is different since I'll be coordinating the retreat, but it also means living in a house with 8 other people, sharing 1 bathroom with them plus 4 others, and needing to be "on".

In other news, for the last week I've been teaching myself Hindi online using ispeakhindi.com I'm picking up some things, and last night I had a dream where I was even using hindi words when speaking with a waiter in a restaurant. It was a strange dream where I was hanging out with people that I've never seen in real life and we were going to take a road trip I think to St. Louis and in our road trip we weren't actually in a car, but were walking, and there was a place where the road turned to water and were were walking through the flowing water and weren't sure if it would stay only up to our ankles or if it would get deeper. And eventually the road turned back to road. And we stopped at a restaurant to eat, and it is a restaurant that I'm pretty sure I've visited in other dreams (again, not a real place). And the people I was traveling with had some love triangle drama going on. As we were looking at our menus, it was clear that there was some jealousy between people. Our waiter started singing in Hindi and I used my very little, and very poor Hindi to try to explain what was happening between people. It felt good that I had some words and frustrating that there were other words I don't yet have in my vocabulary. My alarm went off and I realized that I didn't do one of the sentences correctly. Ah well, it must be a good sign if I'm dreaming about using a language that I've only started dipping into.

A few months for Hindi, then perhaps it will be time for Arabic...maybe I'm preparing for a bigger trip than just Paris & Morocco?

Big Cry

Today was the first day of school. It also turned out to be a day of Big Emotions for me.

Big Happy:
-students are back! I'm so happy to see them all! I really did miss them.
-I got word from my real estate agents early in the day that "The lenders say that they have finished the application, have great credit scores, and foresee no problems with the loan for the September 8 closing." YAY!
-the class of 2009 is starting their internships! A lot of them have already started seeing clients, and it is so great to find out what they are doing. We had our big "internship kickoff" meeting tonight and I'm full of pride and excitement...which also leads to ...

Big Cry:
-there were about 4 times during the internship kickoff meeting where I was working really hard to hold back tears. I'm so, so proud of these people who I've gotten to know and respect. And I'm also anticipating that in only 9 months they'll be graduating...a long time and a short time all at once. This small amount of precious time together is drawing to a close.
-ok, so after the meeting, I went into my office and I did cry.
-my grandma had surgery today, and I've been holding on all day to trying to send good thoughts her way...a big relief to hear all went well.
-I got a call at 4:30 that there is a big snafu with the house sale around water rights and it may result in a contract termination. crap.
-I tried to fax over paperwork to my real estate agents right before jumping into my 5:30 meeting and discovered that the copy/fax/scanner machine at work is down. That will make photocopying the syllabi for tomorrow's first classes (that I haven't yet received) more challenging.

I'm happy and I'm sad and I'm groundless. Maybe it is time to make more cheese.

busy busy

this week is busy
this week is fun
this is Orientation Week!

I'm home from the big Department Party. So, so good to see everyone. I didn't eat enough, I didn't get to talk to everyone I wanted to talk to because I was talk talk talking all night, i sorta cried when we were doing soda-water toasts, I probably have West Nile virus from all the squito bites, and cooties from the faculty member whose gum I borrowed for a few minutes. but, well, sounds like a fun work party, eh?

Tomorrow is a day of 6 hours of meetings. Whee!

School is starting and I'm so super happy! :)

and if you want to laugh and laugh, you gotta read the Aug 20 crazyauntpurl.com post..."seafarers were full of seacrap" and "contour blush" that is some funny stuff.

ok, gonna eat something then crash hard. zzz...

excel geeks r us: the sequel

So back in October, I put my nose in some business at work that got me some fun geek time playing on excel and creating some new budget spreadsheet templates with fancy formulas and pivot tables that are now being used by every academic department at my university (yay me!). Ever since, I've been playing an internal war game of "take on a new project/don't volunteer for more work".

My own big personal whine about my employer is that there aren't training opportunities for staff. This makes me crazy! I've researched about how this is a problem, written reports about how this is a problem, and come up with ideas about how to create trainings, and sat by and waited for somebody else to do the work of creating training opportunities. The big work retreat a few weeks ago I got inspired to infiltrate, and I've been thinking about ways I can use my skills, knowledge, and abilities to train others at my workplace.

Somehow, my thinking about it is turning into an actual manifestation. I was out of the blue contacted by one of my fellow department administrative heads this week to ask for help with excel for a budget thing that is due next week. Then I emailed out to the group of administrative department heads at work that I was available to come help, and someone suggested I do a group training...the thing has suddenly snowballed and today I talked to HR about my ideas, and they want me to create course descriptions and course syllabi and training materials! And they want to have it all together by the end of next week so we can start having workshops in 2 weeks! This is SO cool! When I left HR today, I was just all a-buzz and went to the nearest geek I could find to gush all about my happy, happy news. So Dave in IT got an earful :) I'm pretty sure I jumped up and down in the IT trailer. All because I get to show some people at work how to do some stuff that I know how to do that will hopefully make their work-lives easier.

I'm such a geek, and I'm so excited that I get to do this. I feel so lucky, and so blessed, and for the first time in a long time feel like me again...like I'm waking up from a hazy dream, or I've got new contact lenses or something...everything seems less fuzzy. So here I am. I am infiltrating. I am going to be teaching again, even if it is only a little bit. I am excited and nervous and full of ideas.

Maybe it won't be the summer of cheese...maybe it will be the summer of geek!

The Infiltration Begins

Today was an interesting work day. It started out with a 3rd botched attempt at at a phone interview of a student-applicant who is overseas at 8:30am. Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something. After trying to troubleshoot for 45min, I gave up and headed out to an all-day committee meeting. This particular meeting was a 'retreat' with a guest speaker who was in to work with the group on how to work with challenges we face at work. I got re-introduced to some techniques I've seen before, and that was interesting, but the golden nuggets I walked away with were things that were likely not intentional lessons.

The valuable bits for me:

Finding a way to distinguish between annoyances and challenges. This was a statement made by another participant, and really put some really good language on what I've been struggling with the last few months at work. I haven't been feeling challenged, I haven't been learning new things, and for a few months I haven't pushed myself in new directions or to take on new tasks. I know this is something I need to keep interested at work, and I have to take responsibility for making this happen. I've done it many times in my work career, and I didn't do it this semester. No wonder I've been starting to feel like things are stale.

Asking myself "What can I do?" and also "What am i NOT willing to do?" and getting really clear on these answers. Setting boundaries for myself at work. Constantly taking responsibility for my own happiness in every moment.

When asked the question "What helps bring you back into your body, and into the present moment?" I surprised myself with my response, which was "noticing my breath, and touch--one of the reasons I am constantly writing/typing is to get out of my head and into something physical by holding the pen on the page, touching the keyboard." And I would add that touch is also one of the reasons I love to garden, love to cook, love to knit--I feel more connected and congruent when I can put my hands in the dirt, touch the plants, the yarn, the ingredients.

The biggest inspiration came as one word: infiltrate. What can I do "under the radar" to have fun at work? How much fun can I have at work without getting noticed? This doesn't mean goofing off while on the clock, it means instead finding ways to connect with joy in my work. And as I sit here, I think I need to do this in my whole life, not just at work. I've been a giant mopeypuss for much of the last year--I think a lot of that has had to do with getting divorced, selling my animals, and (sigh) probably something biological having to do with being 30. I certainly haven't been sad for a whole year, and really the last few months have been hardest, but I can see that there are a lot of ways that I haven't extended myself at work like I have all the rest of my working life--I was there, and still doing a good job, but not doing an excellent job. I wasn't reaching out to students in a way that was above and beyond, I wasn't trying to connect with coworkers. That in trying to regroup and find internal resources, I cut myself off, and then felt uninspired. What a strange loop I got myself into--the more I retreated into myself, the more disconnected I felt, and more I retreated and didn't connect. Sigh. Hindsight. So it is time for me to infiltrate--to go in and start creating joy.

the summer of cheese

I think this summer is going to be the Summer of Cheese. or maybe not. maybe it will just be the Summer of Living Alone which may involve a lot of cheese. Oh choices, choices. Maybe the Summer of Choices. Maybe I won't label the summer until it is in progress or nearly over. Maybe it will just be a summer. But it feels bigger than that.

Today was graduation, and from the nosebleed section in the balcony, I sat and watched my 26 students walk across the stage, and I clapped and cried from way up there. I was pretty grouchy today, and grouchy about the fact that faculty get a special section to sit in, but staff don't. Sad that some of those students I may never see again, and I didn't get to see them up close, one last time. Grouchy that I made a choice not to lie and say I was faculty just so I could get a close-up seat. It was a day of choices, it is a lifetime of choices. Every action I take is a choice and has a consequence.

I made a lot of choices this week, some I know had an impact on someone I work with, and likely resulted in some hurt feelings. Another resulted in buying dishes--starting to create my future solo household. And golly, am I excited about my dishes--they are SO pretty.

I still haven't bought tickets to the Ani concert that is happening in Aspen in mid-June. I would really like to go with someone--I think it would be fun to do. And honestly, I'm freaked out at the idea of going alone.

And I've been listening to an audio book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, and I keep talking to my audio book "Yes! yes! YES!" And the book talked about making cheese, and I got so excited...I've made cheese before, and it is something that I want to do more of...could I buy a cheese making book? could I buy cultures and enzymes and make my own cheddar and mozzarella and brie? Really? Me?! YES! So maybe this will be the summer of cheese. And maybe not. It will certainly be the summer of making choices.

sniffle sniffle cough gak

it seems I have developed a cold. sigh. i'm sniffly, i'm achy, i'm periodically coughing, and my voice is all weird. sigh.

today was a weird day. I stayed home nearly all day laying in bed and watching Buffy and Angel episodes, and went to work at 5:30pm because there was a faculty meeting tonight. The meeting was one of the better ones I've been to, and was also one of the most painful--the ex was there, and he didn't say a word to me. the last time we spoke 2 weeks ago, i made it clear (i thought) that he needed to be the one to initiate contact/communication. And tonight he didn't say a word to me. I'm left sad and full of questions. I wonder if I should have done something different to make myself more approachable, or something. He said I was one of his best friends, and there's been no contact for 2 weeks. I'm sure he's hurting, too. I'm sure this was awkward for him, too. And here we are, left in radio silence. I'm sad for me and I'm sad for him. Being cut off in this way really sucks...it is like he died and I can't talk to him anymore.

Wow, this is a whiny blog.

Ok, so fun happy bloggy stuff. I think I've found a new wannabe hobby...bento creation. Holy cow, is this stuff cool and tasty and beautiful. In my sickly, sniffly state I've been spending a lot of quality time with the laptop. I was searching online for virtual pets (yes, I know, I'm a sicko). One thing led to another, and I found myself looking at blog upon blog about bentos. What is a bento? From justbento.com, "Bento, or obento to use the honorific term, is a meal served in a box. Beyond that basic definition though, just about anything goes as to what kind of box or container is used, as well as what is put inside that box,...The kind of bento that have garnered the most attention recently, especially outside of Japan are what are called ‘cute bento’ ‘art bento’ or ‘entertaining bento’ (entertain-bento), extremely elaborately decorated small works of art, as exemplified by the work presented on sites like e-obento (Japanese)." facefoodbento.blogspot.com

I've spent more hours than I'd like to admit oogling pictures of both cute and plain bento. It might be time for me to start getting creative in the kitchen (again).

Some sites to check out:
facefoodbento.blogspot.com
justbento.com
e-obento.com
veganlunchbox.blogspot.com

end of the week catching up

Holy crapunzle, it's been nearly a week since I've written. I've been a busy lady!

Wednesday and Thursday were days of LOTS of work. Friday, I took the day-time off and drove down to Denver to see my hair stylist extraordinaire, Robbie. I do love my 2-hour haircuts with Robbie. We talked and talked and talked about politics, religion, relationships, travel, and adventures while he plays with my head and makes my hair even fabulous. My new hair is shorter and choppier and nice and fresh for spring! I told Robbie about the plan to go to Paris for my best girl Dol's 40th birthday, and his advice: "go to paris and get knocked up". While I know his heart is in the right place, that really isn't how I roll.

However, Robbie did give me a ridiculous pick up line "I recently got my haircut, and I'm taking a poll: On a scale of 1 to 10 please rate my haircut for likelihood that if you were a Frenchman, you would want to get me pregnant." Well, I haven't pulled this one out on anyone yet. I'm not even sure I could say it with a straight face.

After my haircut, I had a lovely lunch with my friend, U. It was so great to see him and talk about trying to get together to see opera or theater or the symphony or even to go to the Denver Botanic Gardens together. Yay for friends who enjoy these things!

Friday night I went to work to help with the setup for the Masters Papers presentations that occurred on Saturday. After the setup, I went out with my best girl and her boyfriend and his friend from out of town, and had a really fun time eating tacos and drinking margs. I had an early night since I had to be back at work at 7:30ish Saturday morning, and I had to finish packing for my trip to Texas.

Saturday morning, I was at work from 7:30-9:30am, and then had two hours of pre-travel freakout. Well, made a run to Target and bought new sunglasses, a new purse, a necklace, a wedding card and gift cert, and a whole bunch of travel toiletries. I then went to the Pearl St. Mall in search of solid fragrance from Lush, but they didn't have exactly what I wanted. I tried out some lovely alternate product, which I will go back for as a treat for ME.

brain stretches

I'm back from a two day trip up to Shambhala Mountain Center. I head up there about a dozen times a year for various work-related adventures. This time, I was up there getting things rolling for the one month retreat our 2nd year MA students participate in. It is really amazing that their training to be psychotherapists includes yearly retreat. I feel so lucky to be part of their journey, and felt sad to leave after everyone was checked in. I spent the last 2 days in meetings, talking to SMC staff about our programming needs, talking to our hired retreat staff about our students and our student needs and boundaries and the container for the retreat. There was schlepping, too--setting up the meditation hall, unloading supplies, etc.

When I arrived on Sunday, it was beautiful and sunny, and warm enough to be wearing a T-shirt and jeans. An hour after I arrived, I needed my heavy sweatshirt, later in the evening, it was snowing. I awoke today to 6 inches of snow on the ground--much more than the predicted 1 inch! I'm amazed, but my little Prius trooped on through the snowy dirt road to get me from the lodge where I was staying to the part of the campus where the retreat is being held. Yay for my Prius!

And I really need a day off. I've worked the last 3 weekends in a row, and I'm heading out of town this coming weekend to witness my Doug & Susie get married. I'm going to take Friday off. I've got a haircut scheduled for the morning followed by lunch with my darling Ugur :) Let's see if I really have a day 'off'.

But brain stretches, oh yes, brain stretches. I mentioned a few days ago that I rented 2 movies on Friday. I watched one on Saturday, and the other one came with me. I got done working at 9:30pm, and had a solo room in one of the lodges. I love staying in the lodges at SMC...it is like staying in a hotel, but not. The rooms are comfortable and warm and cozy, and there's no TV, no phone, no internet. I popped my movie in my computer and got all snuggly under the covers. The movie began, and I realized that my Hindi-language movie only had subtitle options in French and Dutch. Well, once upon a time, I knew French fairly well, so I gave it a go. I was pleased to discover that my ability to read and understand French was not as bad as I was expecting, since it has been 10+ years since I've actively used that language. Watching a Hindi movie with French subtitles...maybe that is pilates for the brain? It sure got me tired in a hurry, and I didn't finish the movie. I'll watch some more tonight, and surely won't finish, since the movie is likely 3 hours long. Brain pilates is hard. :)