List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.
Oh good, here’s a question that I don’t have to be as careful answering as yesterday’s (thanks for the positive feedback). I know the things I’d love to do if it weren’t for that pesky needing an income thing.
Knitting Teacher. I truly loved the years I spent teaching people to knit at a yarn shop. I’ve been teaching knitting and crocheting informally most of my life, but I really got a system going there toward the end. It’s so rewarding to taking someone from being sure they’re unable to learn something straight to competency. And once you can knit, you’ve always got something to do!
Here’s a good starter project.
Nature Interpreter. This is a real job. You share with people about the nature around them, help them learn to see things they might not have noticed, and show them the unique qualities of the place where they are. You can do it as a volunteer in some parks, but Milam County lacks State Parks. Maybe the Ranchería Grande site folks are working on that’s in this county will need interpretation.
I could show folks that they aren’t just walking through a field of weeds, but that the asters are alive with tiny fuzzy bee flies.
Backup Singer. I love(d) to sing. I like being in front, but it’s especially fun to do harmonies behind a singer. I miss performing. I miss the teamwork and cooperation of being in a band, vocal group, or chorus. And sometimes backup singers get to travel! I love staying in hotels, too!
This is the group my friend Sharon is in, the Studebakers. They take turns singing lead and harmonies.
Given a fourth choice I’d be a field worker in biology. I’d get to both be outside and explore nature AND write scientific papers! I actually do know how to do that.
This was a trick question. As a former La Leche League Leader, I’m a leader forever. Ha ha. Of course, I never discuss breastfeeding unless my input is solicited. I was called an n-word too many times just for offering information that I gave up. (Think the German regime that was defeated in WWII but seems to be coming back.)
But, I do think I’m a leader, because I totally suck at being a follower. I am not good at letting other people make decisions. I’m just full of input, whether asked or not. I’m just not a good follower of orders (which is a problem sometimes, because I have a lot of rules to follow).
I like being an equal team no, a lot. It’s my favorite way to work or do projects. I like getting input, coming to consensus and figuring out each team member’s strengths and weaknesses.
When I’m put in a true leadership position, I prefer a more collaborative style. I’ve really done a lot of great projects this way and feel proud of what I’ve accomplished along with so many great teams. Sigh. My projects at La Leche League and Planview were great times and I met such fascinating people.
I probably prefer leading by example to any official position. I just hope that I do a good job. I do worry about my tendency to be bossy, especially when I’m not comfortable with how things are going. I’m still working on that.
Guess what? It rained over two inches today. It made for scary driving conditions, but didn’t flood or anything, so it’s all good. Between two showers, I went out to see hundreds of flying insects I can’t identify (they didn’t hold still for me). There were dozens of tufted titmice in a honey locust tree grabbing a bug, then going back to eat it. How charming!
Look closely and you’ll see a lot of gray birds.
There were just a LOT of birds out today. The Merlin app even heard a duck in the pond behind the woods. I’m so glad migration has started and I can see and here more types of birds. Here’s what I heard during two listening sessions (plus lark sparrows, which sing beautifully).
Birds Merlin heard. By the way, I’m fairly certain the great crested flycatcher it identifies is a scissor tail.
Here are some I’ve photographed in the last couple of days.
After the fun with birds, Lee and I jumped in my little car and drove to San Antonio, not enjoying the traffic, but enjoying the post-rain skies. We’re going to an anniversary dinner for real estate investor friends of Lee’s.
Roadside skies
We are in an Embassy Suites hotel that’s as nice as some of the condos we go to. We have no plans for tomorrow but I think there are things to do where we are (way northwest). Sunday morning we hope to see an old friend of mine. I’m glad we’re able to go, thanks to generous dog and horse sitters.
Today was my first horse lesson since July. I was not sad to miss trying to learn while getting heatstroke. What a relief it was to have a break in the weather —two days with highs less than 100. Plus there were lovely clouds (Tarrin says it’s my job to bring them) and a nice breeze.
There was NO breeze at sunrise, so I sweated during horse and hay work.
I could concentrate on learning and so could the horses. Apache showed how hard he studied since I got back from Myrtle Beach and did his skills pretty well. I’m just so proud of him.
My good man, glad to be home.
Drew has some work to do to get back his leg strength and re-learn to focus, but it shouldn’t take long. He’s still just the sweetest little boundary pusher.
I’m really not interested in sunset photography, Mom.
A bonus of getting home at sunset was seeing the beautiful full moon rise. It’s also a blue moon and I think a super moon? Anyway, I enjoyed watching it rise as the sky turned beautiful colors in every direction.
There’s a blue moon on the rise.
I couldn’t decide what parts of the sky were prettier. Judging from the impatient nickers I heard, the horses and Fiona weren’t as enthralled as I was. They did get their food!
This was shiny and glowed. Find the moon!Brilliant. This one’s a wide angle. Nice end to the day
It was a good day all around for me. I even got to have a work meeting with a Facebook friend, which was fun. We were tickled pink. I’m glad for these bright spots. The more glimmers the better!
I may have done less today than I have any day since visiting my dad and just sitting around with him. I got enough movement in, but barely. Every time I went to go outside, a band of showers passed through, but that’s okay, because the clouds were pretty. I’ll miss beach clouds.
Looking north
Luckily, I got on a roll with the ole technical writing, so I got a lot done as I looked outside at rain. I enjoy those breaks I take to help with eye strain. I looked up one and there, practically motionless outside my window was a beautiful osprey. I guess it was the same one I saw before, but it was so close I could see its feathers.
Looking east. No osprey picture available since I was working.
I had plans to go see the Barbie movie, but we are now going tomorrow, since tickets are half off. That sounds good to me, so instead I finished last night’s movie and watched two more.
Me all night.
My “cinema” friends like Anita will probably enjoy picking out themes and cinematic techniques in the documentary I watched about two women who fell in love in a concentration camp and found each other afterwards. Nelly and Nadine (also the film’s name) were very interesting women, and the super 8 home movies they made showed glimpses of a 50s gay and lesbian world few knew about. I was proud that I made it through the concentration camp parts.
I promised creatures of the sky. Here’s a 27th floor bird grasshopper.
I then switched gears and saw Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which was as good as I’d hoped it would be. The movie was set at very close to the time I was Margaret’s age, so everything was eerily familiar. The sets were 70s fun.
And here are low-flying brown pelicans
I couldn’t find the other movie I was looking for, so I watched Somewhere in Queens. The New York Italian culture is like visiting a foreign land to me, but I enjoyed glimpsing into Ray Romano’s vision.
These guys enjoyed peanuts again. I had three at once.
I guess I’ve gotten enough out of Amazon Prime on this trip. I wish I could use it more at home. Bandwidth. Ugh.
By the way, I haven’t been eating out. I’ve made myself weird dinners out of the supplies Lee and I bought when we got here. I’d sure be cheap to feed if I lived alone, since in addition to cheese, I could live off Tasty Bite curry packages, rice side dishes with vegetables thrown in, hummus, and Progresso soup. Throw in cans of tuna and I’m set.
More than you wanted to know, but it was a slow Suna news day.
And today is Tuesday! I didn’t manage to get a blog post up yesterday, because I was just, as my mom used to say, “too pooped to pop” in the evening. It’s not that I did anything all that exciting, but I did the part of my work that takes a lot of mental energy, training.
Stormy beach with few people
Now, I’m both a technical writer and a technical trainer, so I have the skills. And I love to do training. It’s so rewarding to get people up and running with software, hardware, or heck, even knitting. I enjoy interacting with people, getting them to relax, and helping them individually. It’s just that it takes a lot out of an introvert to actually DO it. Thus, after two classes and a couple of individual sessions yesterday, I just needed to stare at a wall and go to sleep.
Or I could stare at the ocean, which for much of today looked like a gray curtain.
I feel way better today and have already been writing and getting stuff done while Lee packs up to drive back to Texas. It’s been stormy this morning, so he’s waiting a bit to start driving. He just loves doing this, so I’m wishing him well, while at the same time looking forward to flying home (if planes aren’t as weird on me as they have been for so many folks this year).
It’s been stormy, cloudy, and sunny so far today, and that was all before 10 am.
In between training sessions, Lee and I drove up to the first town in North Carolina, Calabash, where we’ve been before. It is an extra-cute little town that still has a lot of fishing boats, so you get very fresh seafood in its restaurants. The one I like best doesn’t open until 4pm on Mondays, so we ate at the one with the most annoying (but fun, in a way) birds, instead.
Boat-tailed grackles (the one on the right is a female)
We got enough food that I’ll have lots of leftover shrimp that I’ll peel the breading from and add to my highly creative solo meals for the next week or so. We gamely fought off the grackles and seagulls, while sort of enjoying their antics at the same time. At least I got to look at a marsh and some boats, so I was happy. The whole outing only took two hours, which was fine, since I had to teach a class from 5-6 pm anyway (it was scheduled for Central Time). All was well.
Laughing gulls waiting for us to leave so they could inspect our plates.
It’s back to my “normal” working from a condo schedule for a while now. I do my best to fit in working out in the gym (treadmill) and sitting in the sun a little while every day, with a visit to the sports bar to chat with the friendly bartenders and customers in the evening. And oh yeah…I can watch streaming television to my heart’s content. I don’t even know what shows I’ll watch,
The prompt for today was easy. I listen to things at work, but not music or podcasts. Here are the things in the background when I’m working from home:
Dogs barking. The most annoying sound. Love the dogs, not as fond of being notified every time a cow moves.
The ice maker. This went away for a while when it moved up to my bedroom (and was turned off at night) and in winter, when the residents don’t need so much ice for basic survival. It hums, whirs, and clatters along quite briskly.
Swallows. They may not be breeding, but they are still swooping into the semi-enclosed area outside my office and yelling at each other.
That’s not so bad. I like to write in quiet, so I think I’m pretty lucky.
Today, however, I worked to the sound of music on hold, as I patiently waited AT&T out. I knew if I just let them yammer on and try to sell me shit, they’d eventually realize they’d been charging me for a broken modem that they no longer service and come groveling back. I did a lot of deep breathing, attended an online conversation with friends, and just kept saying Okay when I was put on brief holds for 2.5 hours. I ended up getting refunds for the broken equipment back to the beginning of the year, no charge for my hotspot that I use in the RV because it’s no good at home, and $55 a month off our satellite tv for a year. HA!
I was so busy today the only photo I took was my fingernails.
I’m glad that went well, since I messed a bunch of other stuff up and was displeased with my lack of attention to detail. I messed up an Airbnb reservation, but if I PAY ATTENTION I can end up making money. I just need to wait two months.
Then I realized my reservation for my next Myrtle Beach trip was for only a one-bedroom condo. I was just sure it was two, because I didn’t look hard enough. There goes my visit with my stepsister, who needs a good bed. I’m gonna visit with them somehow in the not-too-distant future. Or else. And I doubt my other friends will want to visit either. Not much privacy.
There’s a reason I’m not in charge of business stuff usually. I can’t keep all the details straight.
In better news, the reason I skipped blogging yesterday was that I drove over to the ever-expanding suburbs to see my friends Susan and Brian, who were in Texas to meet their newest grandchild. That was a happy reunion. The baby was doing well and had bright, white hair. Really cool. We ate at a nearby Pan Asian restaurant. I got phô and sushi both. Heavenly.
Susan and I are trying to look friendly across a table.
Mostly we talked and talked. It was good to talk and talk in person rather than on Zoom. Susan and I are old friends with much history and much in common, so there’s much to cram in during just one meal. Brian did get in a few stories, too. It was quite cathartic. New grandparents have to do a lot of tongue biting, you know. I did do listening last night, so I’m barely sticking to my topic.
I did take another photo. Spotted Cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) — a major agricultural pest.
Other than that, I’m still having trouble with the heat, as are the animals. The horses are very jealous of shade patches and are grumpy. Fiona is especially full of territorial kicks. No listening there. At least the Zyrtec is helping Apache.
I’ve been needing something to smile about lately, and the Universe has provided. First, I’m grateful to have spent a few low-stress days with my household members, with lots of laughs and encouragement. You can’t beat that!
Even Lee’s ice cream bucket was smiling.
Besides that, one of my niggling worries is much lessened now. It looks like I’ll have another year at my job. Such good news! I do like my job and the people I interact with, for which I am also truly grateful.
My portulaca plants are growing, which makes me glad!
I’ve watched friends being kind and supportive of each other all week. In today’s combative climate, small things like opening doors for strangers, giving tokens of affection, and offering to help someone struggling mean a lot. I can’t be specific but it’s helpful to make the effort to notice these things, and to instigate them when you get a chance!
Lee made me this image. That was nice. It’s a scan of part of a poster.
What little things made you smile today? It’s worth the effort to try to recall those moments and appreciate them. Since I take so many photos, I can share a few more with you.
Enlarge to see the cheerful wiggly honey mesquite seed pods Gorgeous clouded skipper (Lerema accius)There aren’t many thistles left, so they have to share. I’m always amazed that Wild petunias (Ruellia) exist. This teeny spider is apparently a triangulate combfoot. Great name (Steatoda triangulosa)Ooh, these Poecilanthrax lucifer bee flies are doing it. Aren’t these silver leaf nightshade fruits pretty? Wish I had tomatoes thus nice. The name of these cicadas made me smile: superb dog-face (Neotibicen superbus)The town of Bremond, Texas, full of Polish flags (we drove there yesterday)Spider faces. So cute. This made me laugh. Yes. I shared a meme. expand it. Happy things
That’s the blog prompt for today. It’s a hard one. I’ve been put into the position of leadership over and over. I don’t think I’m all that good at it, though, because I spend a lot of time figuring out how to lead and keep those I’m leading happy.
Drew is also an accidental leader. He keeps getting out, but can’t get back in without my leadership.
You really have to accept that sometimes your leadership may not make everyone happy, though. I know trying to protect people I’m leading has cost me a couple of leadership positions.
I’m a follower. I follow Drew.
I’ve been repeatedly told I’m not a good leader for horses, too. I’m not interested in showing them who’s boss. I’d rather lead by being the cream member who sets direction. I think I’m getting better at leading horses appropriately thanks to Tarrin’s excellent leadership (ha ha, that’s a good segue).
I need firm correction and gentle cues, Suna.
I see leadership as teaching others to lead, like a good horse trainer or supervisor at a job. The best leaders are more like mentors, and I’ve been good at that sometimes (sometimes not).
I like to be the boss, but I hate to be away from my herd.
I find it good to be a follower sometimes, too. Not a blind follower who just does what they’re told because some authority says so, but rather a follower out of trust and respect, both of which must be earned.
Don’t worry, Suna led me away before I ate too much grass. See, leadership.
Yeah, I think that became clear reading my diary from 10-11th grades. I sure didn’t follow the rules or orders of teachers I didn’t respect. But it was quite obvious how I’d do anything for the good ones.
I got distracted going out the front door by this moth that looks like a leaf. It’s a large maple spanworm moth. Of course it is.
Now, if this question was really about whether I’d rather go first or last in an activity, my answer would be different. I prefer being in front, where I can see my options, unless, of course, it’s a nature hike. I’ll end up following far behind on those. There are just so many plants, bugs, and birds to observe, plus rocks!
Sometimes my days seem schizophrenic. There are so many highs and lows that it makes my head spin. More accurately, I end up with a full-blown anxiety attack, complete with shaking limbs (that make me trip over a dog then drop and break a pretty bowl) and chest pains. Nota bene: I know it’s not my heart, no need to tell me to go to the ER.
See, I’m also prickly and can get annoyed for no good reason, like imaginary unsolicited advice. Let’s back up.
I went to work at the Red House, since I had a training to do and didn’t want to drop the meeting suddenly. That was fine, though I left my mouse at home. Does anyone actually LIKE trackpads? I’m all ready for the training. Suddenly I hear chainsaws.
There’s my kid and his coworker. They inform me they’re going to cut down the dead and dying trees in the yard. These are HUGE trees. I was dubious. But they did get a lot done, plus got limbs away from the roof.
Before pix of dying and dead tree
All was well, though, since no one could hear the cutting and thudding but me. I made the mistake of looking outside and seeing the two young men on top of the house. I was scared for them and got sorta nervous. It looked pretty dangerous. I mean, they aren’t arborists, just guys willing to do what they’re asked to do. They also admitted to being scared. That’s a healthy admission, I think. As far as I know, they survived. They have good sense!
Progress When I got scaredTree mostly down! Keeping from hitting the porch
I also unpacked a box of glassware from the Austin house. I do dislike doing that, but it was nice to see my Starbucks mugs and favorite green glasses. Lucky renters will get to use them.
Day lily bloomed today!
Things continued to go downhill as I raced home to get ready for my horse lessons. It was extra hot and humid, which didn’t help. The horses were hiding, because they don’t like welding, which was going on in their pens. (Too bad, I’m very happy the pens are getting worked on and think they look great.)
I was too busy to take pictures, so enjoy dogs playing with cattle.
I sorta got Drew cleaned up, then trudged back for Apache, who was sweaty as me. I was deeply involved in trying to de-sweat and de-mud him when our welding friend called out to me. I nearly jumped out of my skin, which is weird, because I knew he was there! It turns out Mabel had braved the welding area and walked out. I had exactly zero minutes for chasing after her, so I probably looked like a nasty old woman running around cursing.
Mabel responded to food, of course, but Apache never did get groomed. All this prelude leads to this: I had a great lesson on each horse, learned a few things, and really felt calm and together, like I’m getting a clue. Well, when Drew started to toss me around because mares were running up, I yelled at Tarrin that I was going to die. But I didn’t. She got me and Drew back on track. He actually settled down after being frisky because the weather changed.
Sunset over chicken house.
Im so grateful for Tarrin’s help, and I think the horses are, too. Apache hates to leave her training area! And we get to laugh at cantering cows and thank the weather for cooling down the moment my lesson started. It’s good stuff, the horse training.
By the time we got home, Drew had managed to kick everything around in the trailer and break his trailer tie. That allowed him to mostly exit ungracefully without me unlatching him. That got me all worried he was hurt. That guy! But he’s no longer the ranch baby, because Sully had her baby today, a little filly! I can’t wait to see her.
Sara shared this cuteness. Sully gave birth at her owner’s place.
By the time I finally got the horses fed, I was starving, which probably led to some of the shaking. I just feel like I was not my best self much of the day, but at work and with the horses I was great. Eh, that’s probably normal.
Now to settle that chest pain down. I’ll pet Carlton. That will help.
The Hermits' Rest 