who's steering this ship?

in the midst of all the craziness and activity at work, a resume passed my desk & ever since i read it, i've been wishing it was mine. yet again i was reminded that this [job, daily structure] is not what i want my life to look like... damn you, procrastination and excuses! i create you at every turn & cuddle up in the anxiousness and confusion you create, somehow convincing myself that this is how life has to be right now. i think there's very little truth in that statement, but i'll have to get off my ass & do something to prove it.

integrity schmintegrity

boy am i ready for this 3-day weekend. work is killing me. the last 4 days have been insane - the highs, the lows... i feel so bored & disillusioned. suddenly my job has no purpose because it's all a farce. not sure how long i'll last at this before i go stark raving mad. this possible merger has turned into a big fat monster. i met with a few work folks late last night to continue working on a plan to keep folks employed if the shit hits the fan. i really appreciate the different people i work with & the fact that we each have a different point of view. also, lawyers are amazing & extremely helpful in these instances. we've got a few ideas to iron out & i've got some research to do over the weekend. we had our last pre-decision meeting today, for our department, & it was really stressful. we went through all the pros & cons that i'd written up last week from our meeting notes. it completely freaked me out when i put everything on paper - because i don't believe in dancing around the issues & it was frightening to think about other's reactions. i knew some people (board members) wouldn't be comfortable with a few of the items & the potential conflict made me nervous. i tend to be pretty quiet during our meetings, because i either have nothing to say on the topic we're discussing or i need time to digest the conversation. in this particular group, this resulted in me feeling kind of foolish, in part because i'm the only female in the group & because i'm not mission driven, per say. anyway, this one board member basically said that though he agreed that a particular statement was true, we couldn't include it in our report because anyone who read it would vote NO on the merger. what?!?! i couldn't believe he said it out loud. it was one of the rare occasions that i spoke up & said if we left the information out of our report, it would be dishonest. eventually the guy gave in. i know none of this means anything to anyone else, but i had to get it out of my head because i'm feeling a bit anxious about it. i'm not sure how what i said was received by my coworkers, including my supervisor. i'm also not sure what to do with the other information that we had to strike from our report. i feel i need to get it into one of the other department reports because the truth needs to be told & heard. what to do, what to do...

diarrhea of the mind

life's been feeling a little crazy lately & so have i. sometimes exciting, sometimes depressing & everywhere else in between. could be my womanly times clouding my brain - i'm sure that's part of it.

there are some big changes being discussed at work. restructuring & whatnot. quite a few folks may lose their jobs. pretty crappy. what's wierd is, M is not driving me insane like she usually does. we've had some great conversations these last few weeks. many months ago M tried to convince me that the changes were going to be really terrible & i didn't want to hear it. everything she said felt so negative & rediculous. i thought she was crazy but in the last few months, i've realized she's right. M's been struggling to organize our colleagues to help them (& her) from losing their jobs. but it's a tough battle. people don't want to ruffle feathers - especially when their job might be in jeapordy. last week i decided to support her "out of the box" ideas & attended one of M's meetings. i don't give her enough credit for all the things she does. she makes me batty some times but she's really smart & motivated. shoot - she's got the most to lose. she'll be deported if she's fired. anyway, i learned all about "work sharing" & some a few other things. we'll see how it goes. time's running short & the final word is expected sometime this month. i hope the board votes NO but we'll have to wait & see.

in the mean time i've followed up on a possible job elsewhere. i'm not that interested in the job - but it doesn't hurt to find out more about it.

today was pretty fantastic. i've been waiting & waiting for a sunny weekend day. seems like it's been cold, cloudy & rainy forever. i worked in the garden last weekend & got caught in a downpour while planting onions. well, today was a gorgeous day & it also happened to be spring cleaning day at the garden. for the first time, i was excited to show up when i knew others would be there. it's hard to get into the zen of gardening when others are chatting you up, know what i mean? there weren't as many folks around as i'd expected. i chatted with a few but spent most of the 6 hours i was there preparing the beds for planting. last year's compost is all spread around. makes me so happy to dig through it & see all the happy worms still hanging out. got a good size pile going in it's place. (i actually scavenged people's weeds from the rubbish pile.) (p.s. flash knows my name & it's totally wierd!) i feel so great after working outside almost al day. sunshine, fresh air & physical labor make a difference.

i often wonder if i'd be happier if we lived the old fashioned way & had to do everything by hand. the simplicity of life would be a load off. you pretty much stay home all the time & work outside growing your food, caring for animals, washing laundry... sure, you wake up early & work really hard all day. but you're not driving anywhere & rushing around & trying to do 10 things at once. you're only doing one thing at a time & that's beautiful. but it might drive me crazy... i read this book called THE GOOD LIFE while we were on vacation in Oregon a few weeks ago. the premise of the book was pretty interesting - husband & wife leave their live in manhattan in the '30s & decide to farm in vermont even though they know nothing about it. that's exciting! they built a bunch of buildings out of stone & learned out to farm & make maple syrup & bartered for things they needed. cash was used very infrequently. i find the whole self-sufficient thing very intriguing. the idea that we really don't need much if we can grow our own food... the people in the book took it a little too far for me though. strict diet & all kinds of other wacky rules. i felt a lot better when i put that book down.

speaking of books - i read an INCREDIBLY BORING book about Alan Alda this week. i think it was his autobiography. there wasn't much of anything at The Book Thing last weekend & somehow i ended up with this terrible book. the man can't write. it was SO boring. but i read it anyway. why? i think it's laziness really. i wanted something to read & it was here. BUT now i started a new book - also from The Book Thing. it's much better. it's called BLUE HIGHWAYS but William Least Heat Moon. it's the account of this guy traveling all over the country in the late '70s. makes me want to pack up & get the hell out of here! there are so many adventures to be had!

ok - so i think that's all i've got for now. be good.

me & d in oregon

those crazy schluetermetz' being crazy

the rocky oregon coast - glad we didn't get a flat tire on the windy coastal highway. stupid rental cars!

so here's the thing... i've got some things to blog about but i'm behind with the themes. 2 weeks behind in fact. (actually, 3 but i got a 1 week reprieve). it's causing a bit of writer's block & stressing me out just a tad.

stupid houses

another sleepless night... i'm so ready for vacation. got up about an hour ago because i was tired of tossing & turning. i keep thinking about this house & i can't seem to turn it off. it's one that we saw last weekend & i was very much unimpressed by. it's small, has a bad layout, looks completely goofy on the outside & needs some serious updating (i.e. tear out the wood paneling & carpet, make a real kitchen, build a small addition on the kitchen...) so why do i keep thinking about it? many reasons, but mostly because i'm crazy. i've worked & reworked the floorplan for the past week. for some reason i think that dan & i could handle doing the majority of the work ourselves - which in theory is probably mostly true. but i admit, we're lazy people. he more motivated than i on our days off. i can't even be bothered to unpile the stacks of mail, newspaper, books & netflix videos from our kitchen table. nonetheless, i believe we are capable. that in & of itself is exciting to me. a project! but any house is a project, right? i mean, anything in our price range, which after today, i've realized is either very small (approx. 1000 square feet) and in need of updating, is a total piece of crap or some combination of the two. so it looks like our best bet would be to buy a small house. i can dig that. we don't need a lot of space.

this particular house though goofy on the outside & inside at the moment has potential. the houses across the street (same style) are very cute. with a small addition, it could have a very functional kitchen instead of a postage stamp. the house is on a corner lot on a quiet street. fairly low crime, compared to our current neighborhood. it's walking distance to the main street of shops, restaurants & stores. it's about half-way from both of our jobs. the neighboring houses seem to be in good condition, which is a plus. there's plenty of parking. oh, this house has a garage - it needs work, but it's a garage. the yard isn't as huge as other yards in the neighborhood but there's plenty of space for gardening & enjoying the outdoors. it has a front porch & back porch. the length of the house is facing south, so it would be fairly sunny. dry basement that dan can stand up it - pretty unusual for houses built in the '20s around here.

of course the whole place probably has no insulation, so we'd need to take that on or pay a bajillion dollars a year to heat & cool it. it's got oil radiators that i'd like to get rid of... um... oh yeah, someone started a fire on the back porch last week & burned a big hole in the back of it & ruining the porch. i know that seems terrible, but we wanted to make some changes to that wall anyway, so it doesnt seem like that huge of a deal. plus, we should be able to get it cheaper cuz it's got a black hole in it, right? that's what i keep thinking - except it's listed at an auction house & our realtor can't seem to get a hold of them. guess we'll just have to see what happens.

i can't wait to go on vacation & stop thinking about all this crap.

Challenged & defeated

after today i can surely say i don't know enough about communication. i know very little, actually. it's funny that most people spend more than ten years in school, learning all kinds of things that people deem important and yet there are so many life skills that are passed over. the ability to communicate effectively is just one such skill. without it, life is pretty rough.

i'm no fantastic communicator by any stretch of the imagination. dan and i were together for several years before i started taking chances & actually expressing my deepest thoughts & feelings. it feels like such a risk, you know? i'm sure some of it i learned from my family - but the rest i think is society. it's impolite...

long story short, i had to do some "conflict management" between two of the people i supervise at work today. it's a situation that's been festering for a while & they had been unsuccessful at making any headway. it didn't seem like that big of a deal - just some unspoken frustrations that weren't communicated over a period of time. i was actually kind of excited about it - because i like challenging myself with new things, i need to feel challenged at my job & i think this kind of thing is really interesting. (it might just be that the idea of doing it well is interesting...) so i got some advice from an HR person (we don't have one on staff) & did my best. everything was going well for a while but things took a wrong turn at some point, which i wasn't able to see at the time - of course. it ended up that one person felt really terrible & kind of ganged up on , upset & crying. i can't stop thinking about the whole thing. if only i'd stuck with the original rules of engagement, the discussion would've ended on a much more positive note, i think. i feel nauseous and terrible about the results of my "facilitating". oh communication, why is it so damn difficult sometimes?

coming soon...

...themed blogging. just before Katie's B'more departure, I joined her & her roommate, Rachel, for a walk around the hood. On this walk, we came up with the idea of each of us writing a blog based on the same theme. I'll give the first theme a whirl in the next few days. you can find their blogs listed over in the sidebar if you want to check out their take on things too.