Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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Random thoughts

There are all sorts of thoughts bumping around in my work and holiday distracted brain.  None of them are significant enough to write a blog entry of any substance.  So here are some random thoughts I had this week.

While walking down the 4 flights of stairs at the end of a very long day of work:   If I had my druthers I would be living on that island  Kathy talked about over on her blog.    And that walking up and down the stairs each day isn’t really about the exercise.  It’s about avoiding conversation in the elevator.  Yep.  I’m a hermit.

While working in my cube:  I overheard a woman across the aisle bitterly dissing her parents  who were driving two days to visit her, but wouldn’t provide her a specific arrival time.  She thought they were so thoughtless, that they didn’t care that she had to have things ready for them but didn’t even know when they would arrive.  I bit my lip and didn’t tell her that I’d give a lot to have my parents driving cross country to visit me.  And that it wouldn’t particularly matter exactly when they arrived.  Just that they arrived safely.  Silly woman.   Someday she’ll know, like we all know eventually, what it’s like not to have any parents at all.

While driving to work early in the dark morning:  Note to high speed driver in dark sedan who passed  five of us traveling down the  narrow,windy dirt road in the last 1/2 mile before the stop sign.  What was so important that you had to be moving that fast?  That caused you to pass each of us individually, whether we were on a hill or a curve?  To risk your life, all of our lives and the lives of some innocent going the other way?  And when we all got to the stop sign and you, at the front of the line, had to wait while a string of cars went by on the main road, all of us lined up behind you, did you recognize how little time you had made up?  Tomorrow will you risk less?

This morning, while playing “where’s Mama” while attempting to distract Katie-dog from wanting me to get up and take her out in the dark early hours of a weekend:  I flung the sheets up over my face and waited; still, hardly breathing, I waited in anticipation of Katie’s pounce.  Except she didn’t pounce right away.  Not even a little bit more than right away.  I could hardly stand it.  I was just going to move the sheet a little bit, check on what she was doing, when I realized I had less patience than an almost 4 year old Sheltie!

And finally, Katie’s thought for the week:  Sometimes if you are very short you have to lick the condensation away from the front door in order to see out properly.

Have a great weekend everyone!


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Walking in the fog

It’s been so warm here, the kind of warm I remember from childhood.  You remember…when you were a kid before houses had air conditioning and you slept on top of your sheets with your pj’s sticking to you and the window of your bedroom open so that the hot air outside could mingle with the hot air inside and your skin felt sticky and your pillow was hot…well…that’s how hot it’s been here these past couple of weeks.

Yesterday morning we woke to fog, and it felt a bit cooler, though maybe that was just an illusion brought on by the gray light and the cooling droplets of mist that stuck to my face and in my hair.  Since I’m still “in training” for that big 10 mile race coming up at the end of the month I decided I’d take myself for a walk before the sun got too strong and burned away the only bit of cool we’ve had in a long time.

So off I went.  The first mile ended at an overpass where as I watched the cars I realized that I was lucky I wasn’t headed off to work when so many people had to, especially those that were getting ready for a new school year to begin.

I’ve been thinking that I need to find work somewhere, and that the odds of me finding it as a librarian are slim…and getting slimmer.  Maybe I’m going to have to start expanding the criteria of work that I’m willing to do.  Maybe I’ll have to defer the dream job for awhile.  Though it sure was fun to dream.

Deep in contemplation I walked further down roads I haven’t walked in a good long time.  Past the golf course which was surprisingly (to me anyway) busy for a foggy weekday morning.

I walked six miles in total, and as the fog lifted I came across my favorite photo of the walk – the side of a barn covered in vines and layers of paint.

Isn’t it beautiful?  It’s sat on the side of this road for many years and I wonder how many people have enjoyed it’s colors prior to me wandering by.  It spoke to me, as if to say; “I’ve been around a long time and I’m still here.  You’ll weather this economic downturn  fine… you may end up with a few surprising colors of paint, but you’ll survive…just like me.”

It was a good walk.


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Things I learned while riding my bike

On this Memorial Day weekend, as part of my new focus on fitness I took the bike out for an hour and a half ride over the back roads nearby.  I wasn’t out to find anything particular; just to see what I might see and enjoy the morning.  Here’s what I learned:

  • That it’s hard to see the potholes when you’re tearing down a hill wearing sunglasses.
  • That for every long uphill you can hope for an equidistant downhill.
  • That if you continue forward, even when you don’t know where you are, you’ll find your way.
  • That these bits of wisdom apply to more than an adventure on a bicycle.

You think?


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Learning to relax

Northport March April 2010 048 Puttering is a learned skill.  So is relaxing.  You’d think I’d have those down, given I’m not working at the moment.  No job related stress to distract me from enjoying life.  But during a walk today I figured out that I haven’t really learned to relax.  Not totally.

I’m cat sitting for a friend, living in her home on the shores of a Great Lake.  What a joy to look out the windows and see one of my favorite lakes.  This morning as the sun was coming up it made a white freighter out on the horizon glow.  I went outside and realized I could here it chugging way out there on the curve of the earth.  Trying to take a picture of something so far away and small was hard, but here’s a couple of pictures, one of me reflected in the house windows, with the ship reflected near my head.

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In just 24 hours I’ve seen countless shades of blue, green and gray in the water.  I could sit and watch it for hours.  But of course I don’t.  I’ve gone to the grocery store and made spaghetti sauce, I’ve played with the cat, I’ve checked emails.  I’ve even started my “up north” exercise regime, to replace the mall walking I’ve been doing at home.  My plan was to walk up and down the stairs to the beach for ten minutes today, working up to 30 minutes in a few days.  Right.  This morning after six round trips I gave up…five minutes after I began.  But tomorrow is another day.

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When my legs could stand the work I went down to the beach for a walk.  I hope to find a Petoskey stone while I’m here.  That’s a grey stone with specific  shapes within it.   They are actually fossils from about 360 million years ago, when this area was part of a coral reef under a sea.   They appear on the beach along this shore of the lake, but everyone wants to find one, so we’ll see.  You can see a picture of one and read a little bit about them here:  http://www.statefossils.com/mi/mistone.html

On this walk I found a cool smooth brown stone with parallel lines running through it.  Very peaceful and zen-like.  It made me slow down and realize I couldn’t walk the beach like I walked the mall…fast… and still find the elusive Petosky stone.  And that for today finding the smooth brown stone was good enough.   Because if I remember to slow down, I have tomorrow to look again.

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