After my deep funk last night, I wasn’t all that well prepared for today, but by the time you get to be a senior citizen, you know that “fake it ‘til you make it” is a real life hack. So I hacked my way through the day and have emerged unscathed. The day was fine, successful even!
I got through my long webinar like a seasoned veteran (oh wait, I AM a seasoned veteran). My colleagues helped out with questions and I think everyone was happy enough. And I spent the rest of the day cheerfully doing my things.
In cheerful work mode
And I finally heard that my contract was being extended until June, which pleases me very much. I’d been recruited by another company to do a similar job, but I was more interested in staying where I am, because it’s such a collaborative environment. So, good news there. We will see how I feel this summer about taking a break or what.
Lee and the dogs vote for taking a break.
The other factor that’s encouraged me today was that I realized I’m not waking up every day to worse and worse news in the US. It’s now like 50/50 ratio of disgusting to encouraging! I just hope we can someday go back to not being “led” by lying pedophiles and their amoral puppeteers. Feel free to disagree on your own blog!
Humor break. I set my phone down on the bed with the camera on. I noticed a camera icon on my watch and used it to take a picture from the bathroom! Nice ceiling, huh?
The weather is warming up, too. Birds are singing love songs and Apache may well be starting to shed. Between him and Alfred, the birds have lots of nesting material!
Now that my exciting software training/tech writing career has ended, I find myself bereft of a mission. I always have a project I’m working on to support users, but I’m out of those. I’m a creature of habit, so I feel compelled to find a project. But is it really a good idea to keep the projects coming?
I could rest, right Mooey?
Believe it or not, watching the cattle in the wooded area next to our house gave me an aha moment. Here’s what happened.
Peach blossom for distraction.
Lee and I went to Lowe’s to get some simple vegetables to put in his raised bed. We also bought two flowering trees, a peach and a pear (nope, not native, but, hey, they are Lee’s trees). When we got home, he drove the Gladiator over to the planting area and proceeded to plant.
Finished planting. Mostly herbs and peppers v
At one point, he booped his keys on the tailgate and that made the horn beep. If you’re rural, you’ll know what’s coming. A truck, something that looks like a feed trough, and a honking horn evokes the food urge in those neighboring creatures of habit, the cattle.
We enjoy eating.
At first just a few adorable calves appeared. One in particular really enjoyed playing with Carlton and Penney. We were charmed.
Dogs and calves
I went off to feed the equine creatures of habit, who nicely line up in their pens for dinner and tolerate my insistence on grooming them in the late afternoon. Everyone, even Fiona, is now looking good, except around poor Droodles’s head. But I’m getting there!
Two buddiesHe looks nobleSee, they look good. So did Dusty.
By the time I came back, all the cattle were crowded against our fence, waiting for us to feed them. Carlton and Alfred valiantly worked to protect us, which really peeved a couple of huge mama cows and the bull. There was quite a cacophony.
I’ve got them under control. Maybe not. Bark bark barkMoo moo moo
The poor dogs got so tired that each of the white dogs went in the swimming pool to cool off.
Ahh.
It took sooo long for the cattle to move back into the pasture, probably because the real food truck appeared.
We will just wait until night if we have to. Moo.
It dawned on me that doing the same thing every time a circumstance looks familiar can lead to disappointment. The cattle didn’t notice that the Gladiator doesn’t usually feed them, or that the “trough” was full of plants. Poor dears.
We aren’t known for our massive intellects.
I need to realize that I don’t need to go find a significant writing project immediately. I’m starting something new, not the usual transition from resting training material in one application or another. I can do something different. There is time to figure out what the next new and fascinating thing will be.
The lemony sun setting on my career.
In the meantime, I’m working on collecting some writing and putting it on my Substack, which you can go follow. Eventually, as soon as I let my thoughts come together in new ways, there will be more on Substack than new and recycled blog content about animals and birds.
And plants.
Who knows? Once I break my habit I could turn interesting!
The Hermits' Rest 