The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

There are times when I wish I was a 'neat freak'...not often, well not everyday, but occasionally. To classify myself as being messy would probably be accurate even though I can't bear to call myself that. Unorganized, perhaps, but isn't that just a longer word for messy?

In my office there are only two people, the Pastor and myself. We both have private offices. His is sickeningly neat, everything in place. Multiple folders, trays and shelves with neatly labeled folders, books and boxes. His desk is sparse and in perfect order--all the time. He has a specific place for every journal, sermon, document, etc. There's a lot of order in this office and it always looks clean--almost sterile.

Now let's venture across the room to my office. At first glance things don't look too bad. One reason for that is my co-worker straightens up for me! During the time I was bedfast he and one of our volunteers decided it would be a good idea to "organize" my office. They viewed my work-station/desk as an abomination--the epitome of mess. It was nowhere near that bad. In their process of good 'deedery' they managed to throw away several vital charts and records--including the church calendar that contained all the parishioners birthday's and anniversaries. There is a cardinal sin in most churches, you DON'T forget the little blue-haired ladies birthdays--ever, because this one could be the last. It took me about a week to discover what they'd done. It was very hard to hide my anger. I wanted to say, "Ok so I'm a slob and you two are neat-freaks, so be it, but from now own you stay in your sterile environment and stay the hell away from my (pig) sty!" I know in one sense they were trying to help but in another they were trying to convert me to the organized side of the tracks. As Dr. Phil might say, "How's that workin out for ya?..."

My desk is just as junked up as it was before. My phone sits to my immediate left, beside it is what I like to call the "Master Pile" this is where all the really important papers and charts I need on almost a daily basis live. I have told the Pastor and all the other clean people to leave the Master Pile alone, no exceptions. Behind the phone and the pile is my plastic shelving unit--4 compartments here all of which are packed to the gills. In the middle is my smokin' new computer, the processor is about the size of a small briefcase. The sleek flat-panel monitor sits atop it--the whole thing takes up minimal space, and it's pretty! On the right side of the desk is my printer/fax/copier monster. Directly below that is a small table with enough crap falling off of it to fill my waste-can.  The rest of the office is relatively neat, especially for such a slob like me.

Needless to say, no one bother's the Secretary's desk anymore. I think finally they've accepted me for the messy person I am--I'm not so sure I really accept myself though. I must admit deep down inside there's a clean freak just busting to get out--too bad she's buried so deep!

I detest days like today--very gray, rainy and damp. The sun pops out of the mass of clouds for a minute here and a minute there, basically just teasing me. I feel like crap too--I can't seem to wake up. Lethargic, would be a good term for how I feel.  I could so hibernate right now--crawl away from the bad weather, the bad news, the bad relationships, the big-bad everything. But you know...as sucky as things seem right now I am so thankful. I am loved and I love, I have the things I need to survive and as bad as circumstances seem to be, I'm still here. I'm still breathing, and loving, and living. And for all of that I am grateful.

Here's to a great weekend *cheers*

oh and, GO VOLS!!

4 days a week I have to drive roughly 45 minutes to get to work. My son still attends school in the neighboring county we moved from. Some people pity me for having to drive that long each day for such a relatively short distance, and not that much money--but honestly it's a bit cathartic for me. I daydream. A lot. That driving time gives me plenty of time to think about the days activities. On the occasional morning my 15 yr old son doesn't sleep and we actually talk, I am majorly blessed--but those times are few and far between.

On these drives I think of tons of subjects to blog on, sadly though, by the time I actually have time to sit down and write my brain is so polluted with other things I barely remember what I had wanted to write about to begin with. But this morning I thought about this topic to address...

I feel incredibly lucky to have inherited primarily all the good genetic traits of my Mother and Father. My own daughter brought this subject to mind. You see, sadly she managed to inherit most of her Father's and my 'bad' traits--or so it seems. Both of my parents have/had extremely good sense's of humor. My Dad is one of the funniest people I've ever known. I love his wit, he's very dry, but so funny and creative. I don't fancy being 100% like him in that respect, but I am very similar. My Mother  was a very funny woman in the sense that she saw the funny side of most every situation. She laughed easily, and I do too. My Father is very smart, in fact, he's one of the smartest people I know--book smarts that is. Unfortunately he lacks very much common sense. Luckily my Mother had a lot of common sense, unluckily, many times her effictveness of common sense advice got lost in her technique. I was blessed with her common sense and my Dad's non confrontational demeanor.

As I thought about this I realized that my middle sister, like my daughter, inherited some of the same qualities I mentioned above but the negative personality links numbered more. I wonder why that is? I mean, I know why it happens but wouldn't it be wonderful if all of us were blessed with equal genes? But, that would be pretty boring, wouldn't it? In a perfect world we would all be an equal mix of good and bad, then we'd have the same tools to work with instead of trying to master the balancing act of our ancestry. Oh and while we're at it, in that same perfect world we'd all have the very same physical make up. No cellulite to inherit, no slug-like metabolism, no fat genes period--the playing field would be level. It would be up to each individual to manage their bodies accordingly, i.e. if you eat a box of Twinkies every night you're gonna get fat--no more of these 'good genes' that allow some people to eat like a horse, never exercise and remain a perfect size 6!

I've been wanting to post for days now. But didn't. Ever have those kinds of days (weeks)? It's not 'writers block', God knows I've got plenty of material in my life right now, like...

    Exciting new health problems--anemia and cholesterol--both of which can be attributed to that bastard of a medicine, amiodarone. My cholesterol level is good-140 but my bad cholesterol is high and the good cholesterol is low. Par for the course, I say.

   I still loathe my step-children. I pray a lot about this one--ok probably not as much as I should, but, they are so rude, selfish and ungrateful I can hardly bear being in the same room with them. I don't say much to my husband about this because I know I'd sure hate to hear someone bitch constantly about my kids. I will say this, I'm much kinder to these boys than they rightly deserve because of my husband.

   And here's the topper--my daughter, my little girl...is pregnant. Yep, she managed to get pregnant about 15 days after tying the knot. When I asked her how/why this happened she replied, "Aw Mom I guess I missed a couple of pills." WTF--pardon my language. Where has she been the last 10 years? She knows full well she has this heart disease and stands a 50/50 chance of passing it on to her child. I sat both her and her now husband down not two months ago and made them both aware that they needed to carefully consider having children and what do they do? Run right out and procreate at jack rabbit speed. I could care less about being a grandmother at 42, but I worry hourly about the health of my child. She is adamant that she's having this baby vindicating that feeling with remarks like, "Mom you had two kids and you're relatively o.k." RELATIVELY OK? Good God, who knows what being pregnant did to my body and my heart, more than one Dr. told me I should have never had one, let alone two. She knows all of this. We had several 'heart to heart' talks about this subject when she was diagnosed--obviously to no avail.

I'm really not an advocate of self-pity, in fact, I loathe it. I will crawl into my own little shell to avoid advertising my problems. The way I see it, everyone has problems, why burden anyone with mine? So just what the hell am I doing now? I think I'm just needing to purge... I just need to get some thoughts out and breathe so I can focus on more positive things. Atleast I hope this will help. I am typically an upbeat person who deals well with adversity--lately I've just been in a funk.