work – Page 4 – The Hermits' Rest

The Hits Keep Coming

I don’t know what to do but laugh. This month has just been chock full of unpleasant stuff, but like one of those clown toys from when I was a kid, when I’m hit I just fall down and pop back up.

It the right image but the toy looks best up. Image from Pexels.

That’s new for me. I used to fall apart. Now I react, but deal with it better. The bad news isn’t everything in life, I realized at last. There’s always good, too. Here’s an example.

Yesterday I’d been thinking how proud of myself I was. I’d paid my credit cards down and could see them being all gone in a few weeks. Ha ha. Wishful thinking! I’d only get that feeling for a few hours.

I’d been looking forward to yesterday for a long time. My friend Lynn Hagan was receiving an award from Texas A&M, and she’d invited some friends to attend the reception and banquet. We had to wear nice clothes!

I went to pick up my friend Pamela, who defied all the odds and was not late. We were enjoying a trip down the back roads of Milam County, on our way to get Phyllis, when I got a phone call from the contracting company I work for. as I tried to navigate unfamiliar roads I was informed that Dell has decided to end my contract next week. I’m out of work!

I’m impressed by how well I handled the call. I’d had inklings something was up, though I won’t know for sure until I talk to my supervisor Monday. I’m more annoyed that they couldn’t wait until the contract ended so I’d have time to get Social Security set up (if I do get it…times are uncertain). But I’m just fine. I’ll wait to see what the story is there, and in the meantime I’ll see what’s out there. It will be okay.

I admit I was not feeling great as I drove to College Station, but I ended up meeting many fascinating people and making friends at the reception and meal. It felt so good to be in a room full of humanities and science majors! I miss being around people of my background sometimes, though I feel like an intellectual elite person when I say that. It was fun violently agreeing on many topics and making everyone feel welcome.

I’m glad we were able to go support Lynn as she got her huge framed award.

I couldn’t sleep last night but I did not lay there and blame myself for the job thing or panic about loss of income. I just couldn’t sleep.

But today I did just fine, got all animals at least partly groomed. Mabel kept asking to be brushed more. By the time she decided to leave, her mane was gleaming. And Fiona let me work on her, too. Yay.

Today we are at Inks Lake State Park, which is too crowded for me. But our friend Jen is here, too, which will make it fun to do bird stuff. I’m going to work on my resume and try not to kick myself for dyeing my hair ends purple. Makes me look eccentric.

Onward! It will be fine.

Learning, Learning, Learning, Persistently

Persistence! That’s what I’m practicing these days, and today was a good example of how it helps. Maybe I keep learning the same lessons over and over, but I keep at it!

Another day, more lessons. Lovely sunrise.

My first lesson in persistence was a work thing. There was an issue with my working hours, and I instantly assumed I was at fault. But, I didn’t give up as I once would have, and instead persisted in talking to my contacts, plowing through emails, and believing my own memory. I said I believed there had been an email saying I should work all week except Wednesday, and my contracting contact found it when I couldn’t. They were wrong; I was right. When will I learn to trust myself? At least I keep trying!

That’s supposed to be a picture of a timesheet.

All the patience and persistence I have had to put into my horsemanship journey is another area where I need to learn to trust myself. Today, my faithful partner Apache and I hit another new learning milestone and gained some understanding. We both have needed a lot of encouragement from Tarrin, but we’re making so much progress.

This was my example of him standing better when he stopped. But he rested his leg.

I learned to do some work on his poll (area between his ears, roughly) and to do some stretches for his hind end. He started out disliking it, but ended up so blissed out that we had to wait for him to get out of his trance. It was fascinating to learn how it all works.

And our riding partnership is finally where I’d wanted it to be. Riding is fun at last, not frustrating. Persistence! We can do more than just start, stop, walk, and trot. Yay! We CAN do subtle changes and go sideways and all that. We are slow, but we keep at it.

There’s nothing going to stop me from trusting myself to keep going until I succeed at things that matter to me. Other stuff? I’m just letting it fall to the side. That’s going to help with my mental health. Hmm. That sounds suspiciously like a goal. Do I do those? I’m setting my intentions, that’s it!

The Rural Internet Dilemma

It’s real. It’s a problem. The solution requires hard choices. Yes, if you need reliable high-speed internet and you don’t live near a major metropolitan area, your options are very limited.

It sounds so lovely to work from home at your lakeside cabin, your mountain retreat, or your horse farm in a sparsely populated area tantalizingly close to “real” towns (me). But when you’re watching that little ball go around and around while you’re trying to do a demo, or your download says it will take 36 hours, the romance fades.

Well at least that would take a while. image from Pexels.

It’s a choice to live here, and we knew it would not be easy. We’ve had some good years—I had a wired option from AT&T that worked fine until it broke and I was informed they no longer sold them. Using hotspots was okay, but Zoom ate up our allotted bandwidth very quickly.

So I got this satellite setup from Viasat. It does work, unless it’s raining. But it, too, had limits and would slow to a crawl. Honest. All I do is 2-3 hours of meetings everyday; otherwise not heavy use. We didn’t even dare stream television, to save the fast speeds for work.

For that reason, we had DirectTV satellite television. I’m not going to go over that fiasco again. After waiting weeks to get it fixed, it stopped working. Then the dish fell down. It’s canceled as of last week.

We started streaming for television when I found an unlimited plan on Viasat. All was well other than the slowdowns. They were infuriating. And this stuff isn’t cheap. And we checked all possible systems, but we have a hill nearby and it blocked the solution most folks I know use. Sigh. Much time has been spent on research, which I don’t particularly enjoy.

Spiders build webs faster than I can download a PowerPoint deck.

There was one final option. We just didn’t want to do it. For one thing, it started out very expensive. For another, we are not fond of the owner of the company that provided this really good service we can even take camping with us.

It’s a dilemma! StarLink works. It’s less expensive now. Everyone I know who has it loves it. But. But. I’ve NEVER been a fan of Elon Musk. I didn’t like him years before he became the next US President’s puppet master. And one of the few ways you can show your disapproval of the practices of corporations is to not buy their stuff. (There are some companies whose treatment of LGBTIA people or religious discrimination means they do not get my dollars.)

Lee finally made the decision to get the StarLink system. We will cut a lot of expenses, even with streaming subscriptions. And we can have entertainment while traveling when there’s bad weather and we don’t want to be outside.

But I’m torn, ethically. This is one of those times where there’s no “best” thing to do. We will have to deal with the bad karma we’re generating, I guess!

Ready to Move Forward

Honestly, I’m ready for my current mood to move on. I know I need to feel my feelings but I’m tired of displacing my anger at one part of life and imposing it on other parts. I need to quit being needlessly annoyed.

I’m as irritated as a cat being bathed. Photo from Pexels.

I truly got annoyed at slow drivers on my way home from working at the Round Rock office today. I got annoyed at the dentist for taking every insurance option earth except mine. I got annoyed at people who post blatantly ignorant political crap on social media. Now, none of those things are in my sphere of influence, except I know when I pick my insurance options this year, I’ll check (just can’t fix it right now).

I looked all professional today, though.

And I’ll still annoyingly jittery and forgetful. I dropped things repeatedly at my desk and hit my head twice on overhead cabinets. Then I left my purse with my car keys in it and had to go back in before I left. I’m having a doozy of a nervous episode. I’d be happy to move forward from that, too.

I just can’t force myself to be happy. I can nudge, though. Photo from Pexels.

Even when you know perfectly well that your worries and anxiety will pass, going through them isn’t fun. I even researched places to flee to this evening. That shows how pessimistic I am about the near future. It doesn’t help that the recent hurricane showed how easily a cashless economy breaks down. I never have cash.

Rambling. Did you want a Goldie update instead? She still felt bad through the morning, but then got to feeling better. Her back leg had gotten hurt by standing up awkwardly, but resting helped.

When I got home she was watching the guys try to fix the front door, and when she got up to go inside, she was wagging her tail and looking bright eyed again. We were all relieved. It was good to have a bright spot in the day (of course, chickens and horses lifted my spirits).

Let’s see what shining highlights appear tomorrow.

Time to Heal, So Heel, Goldie!

We got our dog back and I survived the journey. Let’s just say it’s hard for stressed-out people to deal with how those close to them act when stressed out. But Goldie is home!

She was glad to see us, and is walking well for her first tripod day. The poor girl will not pee or poop anywhere but here, so I was glad to hear that they expressed her bladder during surgery. 48 hours is a long time to hold it, even when your bladder is large.

We have to keep her quiet for two weeks and not let her run and jump. That’s gonna be hard, but we brought her crate into the living room where she won’t be alone. You see, Harvey can’t come upstairs since his stroke, so he has to have someone down with him. So, the living room is now a bedroom. Yow.

We took the couch cushions off, too, so Goldie can sleep in her preferred spot without straining. No more straining now that the car ride is over. The exit was difficult.

Yeah, it was an extra stressful day, not only from a dog standpoint but also a work standpoint. Things change a lot when you’re suddenly in change management. But hey, I got to see a hawk up close, not flapping around. That was good.

This is a good spot, says Mr. Red Shoulders.

I’m just tired. Too many early days and too much calendar chaos with meetings and events changing on me. Time to draw on my reserves, because guess what? It’s burr season again. The horses are covered. We didn’t get enough of them. Now I’m pre-exhausted.

At least the dog is back.

At Least It Was a Different Scary Issue Today

It’s fun waiting to see what interesting challenges pop up every day to give me practice in non overreacting and finding the humor in scary situations. Spoiler: I did fine.

Early meetings mean a chance to see pretty skies.

To start the day, the suddenly announced work meeting I was concerned about turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be. My team has quickly pivoted to embrace the possibilities of being in a different group with a different leader. So that scary issue ended up not being entirely scary, though more organizational change is coming. Good thing we’re now in change management.

The change around the neighborhood is cotton harvest. They’ve worked hard the last two days.

I’m glad I had lots of work challenges today, since it took my mind off Goldie. The other dogs are being very good to her and Harvey both.

The big scary event occurred this evening. I’m glad it ended up okay. Another spoiler I guess. Anyway, I was reading a magazine and heard Lee in the kitchen grumbling about ice. You see, our fancy refrigerator has an ice maker that dumps into a tub that slides out for you to get the ice from it. It doesn’t have an in-door dispenser. That’s one less thing to break, but sometimes if ice builds up in the back, cubes can fall behind the freezer drawer, making it not close all the way.

Usually I get the ice out, since I have small hands and am relatively flexible. But this time, Lee got annoyed, and went after the ice himself. Our guess is that he leaned hard on the drawer to balance himself. That caused the entire very large fridge to fall forward. Yes, apparently when it was installed they didn’t anchor it. Why just today I discussed contractor shortcuts at both lunches (indeed, I was at two different Mexican restaurants today).

Where was I? Oh yes, refrigerator trying to squish husband. When we heard glass shattering, both the nephew and I ran into the kitchen. I picked up giant shards of glass, so dogs wouldn’t try to eat it, since two types of broth spilled. The nephew tried to stop things from falling at first, then gave up and just shoved the thing upright so Lee wouldn’t be pinned under it.

Lee popped his shoulder out, but it popped back in, got hit on the head with food items, and has a small cut. That could have been worse.

The cleanup was icky, but we did it, and all the dogs stayed away until all glass was removed and the floor mopped. It was family teamwork at its best, and sure got the adrenaline flowing. I’m very glad I wasn’t the only one in the house with Lee tonight!

These bluebirds (part of a family of five I got to watch as the young ones practiced catching bugs) will tell you, it’s easier with helpful family!

The positive outcome to all this was that I had to take all the mess out to the dumpster right as the lovely harvest moon was rising like a big old pumpkin. I’d missed the partial eclipse last night, but the moon was just fine tonight. I got to do some healthy deep breathing while I watched it, too.

Onward to the next scary thing. I can take it!

Good night from the Hermits’ Rest family.

Savor the Highlights

I admit it. I’m spending some time feeling sad about how my dogs are feeling. Goldie is limping more, and Harvey has gone downhill since he couldn’t get downstairs yesterday. He seems confused about why his legs aren’t acting correctly right now. We are, too.

We still don’t know if the lump on his leg, a back injury, a stroke, or his liver issues that are causing his problems, but we are medicating him as hard as we can.

Goldie’s lump is bothering her more, so her meds haven’t done much. Tomorrow we are taking her to a facility in College Station to get X-rays and scans to see what they find. I hope that will help us figure out how to proceed. I’m thankful Tarrin is advising us, since she knows many veterinarians, and is dealing with her own dog challenges.

It was darn good to have some positive work things to balance this out with. I solved a thorny problem in a project that made me feel smart. Then a package arrived that contained my gift from my employer for being a good contractor last quarter. They wrapped it all fancy and festively, and I appreciated it. Being acknowledged for hard work is rare in contract work, so I’m not all cynical like I might be if it was more common. This was a real highlight.

Other than that, I just did my best to enjoy my animal buddies and breathe. They always make my daily highlight reel.

Morning horses and Fiona. Apache is filthy from rolling in mud.

You can’t help but smile when you have hummingbirds and calves to look at and every flycatcher in the area to listen to. Hooray for fewer flies!

Having a balance in life can help you get through challenges. I know so many of you readers are also facing challenges. This time of year seems to bring illnesses, loss of loved ones (humans and animals), and financial woes. Noticing beauty, kindness, and generosity can go a long way toward negotiating change and challenge and bring highlights to a low time.

Vlassic took a nice dip in the pool this afternoon.

I Got Enough Exercise

I wonder about me sometimes. I ended up working weird hours today, because I intended to walk for an hour and ended up taking a long horseback ride on it. It made for a long day all right, but it was worth it. I can sure be spontaneous!

Yesterday, I talked to the concierge at the condo place, who really didn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea of me walking up the mountain to the local riding stable. That annoyed me. I know I’m not 20 anymore. But I’m in better shape than I was then!

It’s just a mountain, not the highest one or anything.

So this morning after my first meetings, I wanted to get away from the loud construction trucks (they are rebuilding the road), so I headed up to the ski slope service road and hoped I’d hear some birds and see some flowers. I did, indeed! There were loud Steller’s Jays and crows, and some truly gorgeous flowers dotting the ski slopes.

It was a bit of a climb to get there, and there were more loud trucks, but when I saw horses, it was all worth it!

I decided that, while I was there, I might as well ride. It turned out the only other people there at that time had booked a private ride, so I got one, too. I’d been afraid that I’d be in a big line of horses. But no, little palomino Dreamer and I just followed one butt, that of Ethel, a young draft mare just learning to lead groups.

Both nice horses, though a little scruffy.

Kayley, the young woman leading us, was very personable and fun to talk to about our horses. I did spend a lot of time alternating between enjoying the beautiful woods and mountain streams and trying not to look down when we were in the edges of the steep trails. At least Dreamer did respond to my aids and keep to the inside of the trail.

The horses were so sure-footed. I was thankful! It was a lovely experience and exceeded my expectations. We crossed water, went between trees, and had a blast!

I’m glad I came when I did, because the next ride was full of people. There was a tiny kid, too. He probably wouldn’t even realize he should be cautious on the rocky slopes.

I truly enjoyed the walk back down. I went on the little paths by the woods. Boy did that disturb the squirrels!

When I got back I was quite tired but felt great. I had time to take pictures of tiny, vocal birds.

After working, I roused my tired body to go down to the cozy lounge and had a glass of wine and some conversation with nice folks. It’s fun to meet all these travelers! I’m glad I left the condo to get some new scenery!

Work at 6am tomorrow! Off to snooze!

Surprises, Weird Ones

The last couple of days have been surprising in both good and weird ways. I’m feeling pretty darned good at the end of it all. So, what’s been going on?

The gods and goddesses must be smiling at me.

The only sad weird thing didn’t happen to me, but I saw the evidence after my horse lesson. I feel bad for the woman it happened to, though. Apparently, one of Tarrin’s other students arrived for her lesson and went to her trailer to let her horse out. There she was very surprised to find a bird impaled on the door. What a shock? How does a bird fly that hard into the back of a trailer that’s moving forward? That was a weird surprise! Everyone thought the bird was a mockingbird, but detective Suna figured out it was a cuckoo.

Brown wing feathers and a striped tail. Very unfortunate cuckoo.

Better surprise was that I had so much trouble getting Apache to go into his pen after we got home last night that Mabel snuck out. I tried to entice her with sweet feed, but she wouldn’t go in, so then Dusty went out. I was so tired and being attacked by mosquitoes that I just let them all out to enjoy the much nicer grass in the exercise area. Lee and I managed to get our gate to shut, so in the end, it was surprisingly fun.

This morning when I went out to check on them, every single one of them, even Apache, came up to say hi and hang out with me. Drew even tried to go on my walk with me, but I did shut the gate. They all seem to like me.

Next happy surprises came midday, when I had lunch with my friends and we had so much fun that I had a hard time leaving. My segment of American society suddenly feels a little hope. It’s been so long that we are a bit giddy. I did have to leave to pick up my asthma inhaler (I only need it at times like this, when there are fires and Saharan dust in the air). There was a friendly pharmacy tech there, and she asked if I wanted my shingles vaccine first dose. I sure did! And there was no wait for the pharmacist to administer it, for free because I’m old! Surprise!

The pharmacist did it better than I do with Drew.

But wait, there’s more! I went back to work after the vaccination and got onto my regular monthly call with my contact at my actual employer, through which I’m contracted to Dell. I was surprised to see a second person was there, and they were all on camera. So I said hi and noticed they were really chipper. Finally they said they had good news. That surprised me. Apparently, they nominated me for some great contractor award and I won. That was very nice of them! You don’t get much recognition as a contractor, so that pleasant surprise was a great way to end my work day. I guess I’ll find out eventually what award I got.

It’s only been 31 years since my last award for technical writing (as evidenced by the dust on it—it was hiding in a box but Lee put it up).

Plus! At feeding time each horse and Fiona went right into their pens. I didn’t have to chase anyone. Whew.

So, see? Sometimes circumstances are really good! That’s life (and my arm feels fine, because I took ibuprofen.).

Milestone: it hit 100° here for the first time this year today. By this time last year we’d gone over 105° F.

Tricky Health and Well Being Strategies

What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

I’ll tell you about one health and well-being strategy I use: if my day was too draining to blog about, I’ll put off answering the prompt. So, I started this yesterday and stopped. I realized I was having anxiety issues big time.

I don’t think I realized it as the work day was going on, but when I stopped working, I got those familiar chest pains that usually don’t happen anymore thanks to my daily medication. It’s some kind of PTSD-like response to my day. My boss was laid off and I was the last to know, thanks to Microsoft Teams suddenly insisting on my password that I forgot. That kind of stuff happens in large corporations of course. I’ve been through it with Lee, at the same company.

But my “stress memory” didn’t handle it as well as my intellectual brain did. I went right back to when I was at my previous employer and the boss I considered a mentor and friend got laid off (victim of a power struggle). I’d really liked my job there, for the most part, but things immediately went downhill until I realized I, too, was in the middle of a power struggle I could not win.

My nice job became prickly, just like these beautiful flowers will become those giant burs.

The last straw was when they made someone who worked for me my boss, and a week after telling me I was the strongest member of the team, he turned around and gave me one of “those” little chats about what a poor worker I was. I was so confused I kept asking, “What?” The very lucky thing was that I’d been getting all sorts of calls and emails about another position doing the parts of my job I really liked without the management politics. I took it. It’s a great job.

Happy worker, generated by AI – it is not me

And here I am having chest pains again. Now, I know that my position for next year has passed all the approvals needed, and I’ll get to work only 32 hours, which I find great. More time for camping and horses! But, not knowing where our team is going and all that would make anyone a little uncomfortable. I need to just take it day by day and be positive.

Could you tell my emotions to pay attention to my logical side? I guess that’s really my job. And that’s one thing I do to keep my well-being under control. I keep telling myself everything is OK until I believe it. It’s worked for eliminating negative self-talk, so maybe it will work with getting triggered when a bad experience could be construed to be happening again.

I need a new perspective, like this picture of the front pond from the side I usually don’t see.

At least maintaining my health is easier. I now exercise enough because it’s become a habit (hooray for my Apple Watch). I can’t believe it, but I feel bad if I’m not active. Needing to care for the animals sorta forces me to burn some calories, and the horse lessons are good for both my body and my mind. I’m really feeling good about all that!