30 Days of Happiness – Day 5

This should really be day many-days-more-than-five, since I’ve become so happily behind, but we’ll just call it Day 5 and continue from there. (That will make my 30 days last even longer!)

Since my last post:

I gave notice at my current job. It’s amazing what nice things people have to say about you once you give notice. It’s a very nice ego boost. It’s also nice that the people I worked with are genuinely happy for me. I seem to have developed a little team of cheerleaders who understand that the current situation is unhealthy, unfix-able, and beyond my control (how validating!), and have been waiting with me for me to find the next opportunity. There has been a lot of grinning.

We drove to Pennsylvania for a family weekend and had a really, really, really nice time with cousins, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and on and on. There was catching up and eating and singing around the campfire and eating and homebrew and eating. The rain pattering on the tents was actually a nice sound while we slept, and the rain let up enough to let us pack up without getting drenched.

We went to East End Brewery and stocked up on beer. Beer with fresh hop flowers. Mmmmmmm.

My nephew turned 12. TWELVE. How does that happen? I love those kids like crazy, my nieces and nephews. I love watching their personalities grow and bloom, watching them turn into good people, not just well-behaved kids. I wish I lived closer to them so I could spend more time with them, but I’ll head up sometime in October and we’ll have a big birthday celebration.

I finished mittens for my niece! They were for last Christmas. Ahem. They’re Give A Hoot by Jocelyn Tunney (Ravelry link) and I LOVE them. It felt so good to get them done. I also am finishing up the button band on the baby sweater I’ve been knitting since July. They baby was born July 20 and the mom is back to work, so that’s a little behind too.

And, I’m just generally feeling good. I haven’t felt good like this in a long, long time. There’s still too much going on. I’m still not keeping up on life, but I feel like I’ve turned some kind of corner and I’ve got an opportunity to take a deep breath and reconfigure things so what’s important to me is on the top of the list again. It’ll be hard to be patient while I figure out what works, but that’s ok.  I’ll get there.

30 Days of Happiness – Day 4

So yeah, as I mentioned at the end of the last post, I got a new job!!!

This opportunity came to me by my good friend that I worked with one job back. I trust her judgement completely, and she says I’m going to love it. She let me know there was an opportunity on Thursday, I sent her my resume on Friday, I received an email setting up a phone interview that same day, I had the interview at 3 on Monday, I received a follow-up email 45 minutes later asking me to come in the next morning, I went in at 8:30 on Tuesday, found out they wanted me at 5pm that same day, and received the offer letter today. Fast and furious, but it feels very, very right. And I trust my friend.

I had a call with them yesterday afternoon and they were giggling with happiness that I’m joining them. I can’t begin to describe how good that feels. I’ll be working with a small team, it’s a contract position, so I’m my own boss, and it removes me from the very miserable current situation that’s been eating my energy, soul, and ability to be happy.

So today, I’m overwhelmingly happy for good friends who look out for each other, for a new job, and for the great possibility that lies ahead!

30 Days of Happiness – Day 3

Today I was walking from the Metro to the office after a great interview for a new job. I had texted my mom to tell her it went really well and to keep her fingers crossed. She responded with, “I’ll say another prayer for you!”

I’m not a God girl. I was never drawn to religion, never found comfort or solace in it, and never really bought it. It just never made sense to me, never clicked. My mom required that we attend church every Sunday (except summers) our entire childhoods, and then stopped going after we were all out of the house.  I know there was more to her leaving church than that, but it seemed hypocritical at the time.

Recently, she began attending again and has started up with random “pray for me” comments. I’ve found them really annoying. I’m not into church, or praying, or your defined religion. Don’t push that on me. Why would you say that to me knowing who I am and how I feel?

Today, I got that text and felt the annoyance start to creep in. I started formulating snappy replies in my head.

Today, I was able to stop.

Mom saying a prayer for me=me crossing my fingers for someone=sending someone hugs and good energy=wishing someone well. This message came from her, and so I need to perceive it as coming from her. I understood her intention, so why should she have to modify her way of communicating that intention because she’s talking to ME? I won’t pray for my Catholic friend, but I will send her all the good energy, healing thoughts, hope and peace that I can possibly conjure up. She knows my intent, and she appreciates it. It’s the same thing.

I don’t know what made me stop today, but I feel like I finally internalized a lesson that I’ve been trying to teach myself for years now. Maybe it was the confidence boost from the great interview and the bouyancy that gave me. It felt so good to drop the defensiveness and just take in what she was saying. It felt good to take her for the best person she could be. And it felt amazing to feel myself finally, and not in retrospect, thinking in this way.

Oh, and by the way… I got the job. GLEE!

30 Days of Happiness – Day 2

Cool breezes in the summertime.

When I was young, I would watch the curtains for signs of fluttering. It would mean relief on those stifling summer nights when even the sheet felt to heavy, sticking to my skin. I’d throw a leg toward the breeze, hoping to feel it whisper on me, hoping it would cool me down so I could drift with it into sleep. Sometimes, when the season was right, it would bring wafts of lilacs into the room and sweeten the evening, or raindrops from a summer storm. Mostly, it just brought cool relief.

Tonight, the windows are wide open. It’s cool outside, and the breeze is following me through the house. It’s bringing back visions of childhood of looking from my pillow towards my feet and over to the window to watch the curtains billow towards me, breathing their relief, sighing me to sleep.

30 Days of Happiness – Day 1

I’m starting this just when I know that I’m going to be away for a few days, but right now I’m just feeling a need to begin. I spend too much time absorbed by the negative, by what I am powerless to control, and the consequences of that powerlessness on my mindset, my confidence, and my sense of well being. It’s time to reset and re-train myself to see all the good that’s around me.

Day 1: Possibility

I am filled with possibility right now. I have an interview next week that could get me out of my current very miserable job situation and put me into a much happier position at a new place. It’s a contract position, which means I’d have time, while still earning money, to explore other opportunities and to calm and recollect myself after too many years of too stressful work environments.

Some of those other opportunities are outside of the classified ad office job realm and in entirely new directions. Those opportunities feel so exciting right now. The feel, well, possible. They feel right. I’m loving thinking outside of the “this is what I SHOULD do” realm and breaking into the “what I COULD do” world. This world feels like it holds a happy future that I will love working towards.

Thinking about joining Erin in 30 Days of Happiness has me thinking, too, about all the happy-making things I can write about. That’s a nice change of mindset already.

Oh, and today, the windows are open for the first time in months letting in the fresh air and sounds of the neighborhood. That makes me very, very happy.

Just when I’d given up on workplace humor…

I got back to my desk and found this:

Saturday’s Haul

I can’t for the life of me, even in the HTML, fix the super bad ugly formatting below. I’ve tried for two days, and have been completely unsuccessful. Apologies in advance…

Saturday’’s Market Haul:

1.5 pint blackberries
1.5 pint black raspberries
1 pint raspberries
5 pints strawberries
4.5 pints blueberries
2 pints cherries
rhubarb
spinach
broccoli
red cabbage
green beans
basil
mushrooms (porcini, morel, honey)
squash
peppers (hot and sweet)
radishes
white turnips
sweet potatoes
peas
empanadas
scones
granola
pb cookies
pasta
eggs
milk
cream
flower bouquet
lavender

I’m steeping the cream right now to make lavender cardamom ice cream. It’s a total experiment and I have no idea what to expect. I’m steeping 1 cup of cream with 1/4 cup cardamom seeds and probably 3/4 cup lavender, with 1/4 cup sugar stirred in. Tomorrow I’ll make the ice cream. I had a ton of fun with herbal ice cream and sorbets last year–basil vanilla, strawberry pineapple sage, chocolate mint chocolate chip–I’m silly excited about how this will turn out.

As for the rest of the berry bonanza, we’re having blueberry pancakes for dinner tonight, there will be berry yogurt for breakfast all week, snacking, freezing, scones, and blueberry muffins are the current plans. I haven’t decided about the rhubarb yet.

The garden is getting huge. What started as this:

Early garden

Early Garden

Is now this:

June Garden

Hyacinth Bean Flower

June Garden

Balloon Pepper

Unknown Hot Pepper

Hope Lilies

German Chamomile

Everything is big and robust and happy. It’s been super fun to watch. We made some hot sauce out of the unknown peppers this past week, and it looks like we’ll have enough to make another batch at least. The yellow and super funky balloon peppers were started over the winter from seed. One tomato plant has one tiny fruit, which is so very exciting. The cucumbers are huge and flowering. We have a jalapeno and a cayenne on those plants, the potted herbs are plotting with the nasturtiums to take over the world, and they hyacinth beans are showing off like mad, making the purple hulle peas and cowpeas all self-conscious, but they’ll catch up before we know it.

Oh. And the fennel, that was sold to me as dill, is also ginormous. What the heck do I do with fennel?

A quick peek

In the ground:
Tomatoes (2 Cherokee Purple, Tiffen Mennonite, Omar’s Lebanese, and Billy Bob’s somethingorother)
Pole Beans (4 Purple Hyacinth, 6 Purple Hulled Peas, 6 Cowpeas)
Pickling Cucumbers (I think 18)
Hot Peppers (Jalapeno, Cayenne, Habanero, 3 Limon, 2 Balloon, and 2 unknown)
Broccoli (6)
Rainbow Chard (6)
Herbs (Sage, Italian Basil, Purple Basil, Cilantro, Parsley, oregano)
Strawberries
Nasturtiums

In pots:
Chocolate Mint (4)
Red Leaf Lettuce (6)
Bee Balm
Lavender (2)
Marjoram
Rosemary
Eucalyptus
German Chamomile (2)
Lemon Verbena
Tomatoes (2 Cherokee Purple)

On the needles:
Star Cross’d Love (rav link)
Dishcloths (I’m half way through my 4th)

That’s a whole lot of happy.

Old home revisited

I walked up to Georgetown today to return a jacket to Patagonia that I loved, but could not justify. I bought it during their huge sale thinking it was a parka. It was the perfect red. It fit really, really well. But it was a shell, not a parka, and I have something like that so I had to take it back as soon as possible so I wouldn’t keep this thing that wanted but did not need.

I walked up M Street. This is a walk I used to do daily when I carpooled with a friend who worked in Georgetown. It felt a little like going back in time, walking up that road. A little bit of old home that I never knew was home at all. I passed Zeds, where BF and I once had really good Ethiopian food back when I was working on the farm. We had gone to meet and old friend of his who happened to be in town on business. She was there with her coworkers, all of them dressed in their business niceness, and I was in jeans and a tank top with my fingernails stained black from a day working the transplanter. Someone suggested we share a vegetarian plate (you eat Ethiopian with your hands) and I just kind of looked at my hands, looked at them, and tried to offer them an out. They didn’t care. It was a delicious, relaxed meal and really nice company. I passed by Miss Saigon, where a friend and I went to dinner one night after getting haircuts together. I passed the salon. I passed the firehouse. I thought about when I carried the three-tier stout cake that way from my friend’s office to mine, and the way the firemen had all ogled the cake (not me). I rediscovered a yarn store I had forgotten was there.

Walking back, I came to the bridge that crosses over Rock Creek Park, and I approached the same homeless man that I used to see every day when I made this walk 2 years ago. He was deep in political discussion with someone, like he always used to be, newspaper in his lap. That year I watched him as a talkative, engaging man in the summer and then wither with the seasons into a blanket wrapped pleading bum in the winter. I would always stop and buy him coffee and something to eat, hoping to do something to make a bright spot, add a bit of warmth, to his bitingly cold day.

I pulled a dollar out of my wallet and placed it in his hands as I walked by. He looked me in the face, smiling and graciously thankful. I smiled back and continued on. He probably doesn’t remember me; he sees thousands of faces a day. Though I was sorry to see him in the same spot in life, it felt good to remember him, to give him a reason to smile.

Next?

I’ve been really deep in my own head lately. It seems too personal to share, feels futile to talk about, and is just encompassing and overwhelming.

I started my new job with the hope and excitement that we all start new jobs with. I knew when I took the position (as it’s the same position as my last hell gig) that it is not something I want to do with my life. Hell, it’s not something I particularly enjoy, and it is not personally fulfilling in any way. But it got me back into the nonprofit world. A world with meaning. A world where the mission gives back, even if the work does not.

I was right. The mission does give back some. The dysfunction is also mind boggling. I am constantly astounded by the way things “work” here. I know that being more involved in direct program work would make a world of difference in my tolerance of the chaos, and I did come to this place because there will be room for movement with time. But, right now, I don’t know quite how to process it all and make it a positive thing. I’m not good at rolling with it, and feeling this enormous sense of being disheartened is making every small chaotic explosion that occurs something much, much bigger to me.

I’m frozen with the sense: This can’t be all. This is not all there is. I want to do more than this.

I don’t feel cut off from possibility. It’s the opposite—I find the amount of possibility out there overwhelming. I don’t trust myself to choose well, or choose correctly. None of my big Make A Huge Change plans have worked out. I’ve learned a lot of really valuable lessons, and I know that life is a series of steps—not a destination point—but I would really like to start proceeding with less major lessons and more day-to-day happiness and confidence. Does that happen?

I’ve been having this conversation for years. What next? What now? How do I choose? I’m tired of having it with myself. I think others are tired of hearing it from me. More and more when I try to talk out loud about it, I feel like I’m faced with others’ judgment and interpretations, and not supported by people who actually hear me or want to help me sort it through. “People make life changes all the time. There’s no reason you can’t just start over.” (Is it really that easy?) “You haven’t liked a job for as long as I’ve known you. I don’t even think you liked one before I knew you.” (So I decide not to like my work, or I create bad workplace situations?) “You just need to move back home and do this or do that!” (As much as it would be nice to be closer to you, and as attractive as that sometimes sounds, it will not solve my problems.) “If you moved someplace with a lower cost of living…” (Cost of living is irrelevant. I still don’t know what I want to do. And, I live on the super cheap.) Maybe I’ve talked about it too much. Maybe it’s just my defensiveness. Maybe it’s just that I’m so stuck.

There is so much possibility. How do I take a possibility and make it possible? And what if it all goes wrong? And where do I find the time to research the possibility and start moving forward? “Making” time isn’t simple.

Round and round I go, a whirlpool in my head, tiredness in my body, and reaching to find a piece that I can call a foundation to start building my Next upon.