Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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Sad reminder

Last night we watched the news about more tornadoes across the Midwest.   Today the death toll mounts.   I was sad as I drove into work; sad that these things happen, sad that I’ve been grumpy about my work when I should be glad I have work, sad that so many people across the country have such horrible things to struggle through.

And when I got to work the sadness deepened; I learned that one of my coworker’s Dad had died unexpectedly this past weekend.

The coworker is about my age and a couple weeks ago she decided she felt like going ‘home’ to Florida – to take a break from work and to visit with her folks.  So she up and made the reservations and went.  It was a spur of the moment trip and she had a great time. Last week she was back to work, content and relaxed.  Today’s she’s back in Florida helping her Mom cope, trying to cope herself.

I understand because the same thing happened to me with my Mom.  Sudden death is just so difficult to comprehend.  You just saw them.  Now they’re gone.  Unfathomable.

So my heart goes out to all the families who lost loved ones this weekend.  It wasn’t the end of the entire world, but it was the end of the world as they knew it.

Such sudden and tragic change should remind us all that today is all we have.  Make the most of it with those you love.  I’m sure my friend is glad she made the trip two weeks ago.

If you haven’t seen someone you love in awhile and if you can – well – go book that flight, make that hotel reservation tonight.  Hugs are waiting for you and you wouldn’t want to miss them.


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History at home

Scott over at his blog Views Infinitum has challenged us to find out a bit about the local history in our own towns. This assignment isn’t due till Wednesday so you still have time to find some history near you and participate!  I’d love to learn more about the towns you all live in!

I admit I don’t know very much about my own town.  I’m not even sure it qualifies as a real town given there’s only a party store, a lawyers office, a garage… and…The Candle Factory!

What?  You don’t have a Candle Factory in your town?  You wonder what one would look like?  Well let’s go visit!

The Candle Factory has been housed since 1960 in a building that was built in the 1830’s as a general store.  It is characteristic of many buildings in Midwestern towns that were founded in the mid-19th century.  You may even have grown up in a town with buildings just like it.  Notice this wall where the bricks don’t quite match the bricks on the front of the building?

That’s evidence of the staying power of history.  A few years ago we had a tornado come through town; it stripped all the bricks from this side of the building.  I talked with the owner of the business today and she said the tornado flew in a side window and out the front, but thankfully didn’t damage the equipment inside.

Want to meet Phoebe and see her candle-making equipment?  Well come on in!

Phoebe and her two daughters have owned the business since 2000.  The automated dipping equipment is made out of lumber, bicycle gears and roller skate wheels.

It runs the whole length of the building, moving the wicks high above the main floor, gradually bringing them down to the big pot of hot wax into which they are dipped and then moving them through a hole in the floor into the basement to give them extra cooling time, eventually bringing them around full circle and back up to the ceiling again for another trip to the hot wax.  It looks somewhat medieval, but it’s a marvel that any engineer would find engaging.  Today they were hanging wicks on the equipment getting ready to dip long tapers.

I really enjoyed my visit. I’ve lived here almost twenty years and I’ve never stopped at The Candle Factory.  I promised I’d be back, hopefully to see the equipment in action!

If you like candles and want something truly special, handmade with with love, check out their website. They ship all over the country.  They do special one of a kind candles, hand decorated with whatever you need.  In some families a Candle Factory Christmas candle is an annual holiday tradition.

Think I’ll have to start a tradition too.  Support your local artists, you know?  And if you don’t have a Candle Factory in your town, well come on…support mine!

Thanks Phoebe for showing me your business, sharing it’s history and spending time with me, some stranger with a camera and a need for a story.

It was nice meeting you!

 


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This is how you can help

I’ll try to make this short because I know not everyone is into the whole truck safety thing.  But some of you have wondered how you can help move safety issues along.  Here’s an easy way.  There is now a House and a Senate version of the SHIPA bill.  SHIPA stands for Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act.  It seeks to freeze the size and weight of commercial trucks where they are now as they travel on the national highway system.  Size and weight are already frozen on the interstate system, but larger trucks are allowed on many highways.  SHIPA would eliminate that loophole.

You can go to your Senator’s and Representative’s websites and ask them to cosponsor these bills.  The more bi-partisan support we can get the better the chance that we can get the bill to pass.   The Senate version of the bill is S. 876,  and the House version is H. R. 1574.

The House version already has over 30 cosponsors so your person might have already signed on.  Here’s how you can tell.  Go to this site.  Click the bill # option under the search summary.  Then type in H.R. 1574. (you can also type hr 1574)  That will take you to a spot where you can click on “cosponsors” and see if your Representative has already signed on.  If not, email them and ask them to cosponsor.

The Senate version doesn’t have any cosponsors yet.  It was just introduced at the beginning of May, by a Democratic Senator.  It would be great to get more Senators to cosponsor.

If you’ve never written to a Member of Congress before, don’t be intimidated.  You are important and they want to hear from you.  You can find their websites by just googling their name, or you can go to this site to find out who your Representative is and this site to find out who your Senators are.

Each one has a comment section on their individual websites.  You have to fill out your name and address so they know you are actually one of their own, then there’s a big box where you can type.  We don’t want all the messages to sound canned, so just ask them to cosponsor either H.R. 1574 (if they are a House of Representative Member) or S. 876 (if they are a Senator).  Tell them that bigger, heavier trucks are more dangerous, will kill more people and cause more damage to our bridges and roads.  Tell them you want their support to make our roads safer.

That’s all you have to do…ask them to help us make the roads safer.  Try it, it’s easy and it will empower you.

And the victims and their families will thank you.


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Rainy weekend bird couples

Katie and I are getting a bit stir-crazy this weekend, stuck inside as the rain falls.  So we’ve been watching the bird feeder, Katie and I, and we got to watch a very loving cardinal couple.  She sat on the top of Katie’s kennel and he would go to the feeder, choose a special seed, then fly and feed it to her.  So sweet.

Later in the morning I saw this big bird hanging out.

Turns out she’s the female rose breasted grossbeak.  And eventually I was rewarded with seeing them both together at the feeder.

Seems it’s a couple’s day for birds around these parts.

Katie says:  “Enough with the birds Mom….what are we going to do for fun?


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Some pretties

Do you ever notice how green things are after a spring night of falling rain?  Our yard is even more green this morning than it looks in this photo.  It even smells green!

Inspired by trillium photos over at Books in Northport I went for a walk during lunch yesterday.  There’s a little woodland park in a subdivision not far from the office where years ago I spotted a lot of trillium.  Given the trillium are blooming in parts north of here I knew I had to get going if I was going to see any in a much warmer suburban micro-climate.

Guess what?

The floor of the woods was jam packed full of trillium!

Trillium are Michigan’s state flower and it used to be, back when I was a kid, that seeing them was rare.  So I feel lucky to have this patch so close to the office.

Look at the top petal…is that a baby mosquito getting ready for lunch?

This little patch of woods in smack in the center of a perfectly manicured subdivision, with it’s pretty pear and crab apple trees.

There was a chickadee just singing his heart out, hidden somewhere in the middle of a flower encrusted pear tree.  I wondered what the world looked like from his vantage point, high in that fluffy white confection of a tree.

It was a pretty walk.  I’m glad I didn’t miss this part of spring while I was slaving away at work.

Kind of made me smile.


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Crumbling confidence

In my work I look at a lot of details.  It’s something of a detective job, ferreting out the important stuff amid all the other irrelevant bits and pieces of a person’s financial life.  There are a myriad of rules, individual situations, and innumerable combinations.  And things change all the time.

For a person that likes to do my work correctly this can all be overwhelming.  And while I might catch one thing on a transaction there can always be something else I didn’t see.  Lately it feels like there’s an audit error coming my way every week.  Sometimes more than one. I learn from each error, but the next week something totally different rears its ugly head.  Trying not to miss anything causes me to slow down and miss my production goals.  And the audits keep coming.

I know a large part of this is a function of being back in an industry that changed drastically while I was gone.  We are totally paperless now, and that means most of the time you see only one document at a time.  That in conjunction with my lack of short term memory means I am constantly going back and forth between documents. And don’t even talk about the interruptions of phone calls and emails and other employees.  Usually I resort to writing stuff down just to remember it long enough to make a decision.

Still I’m making mistakes, and it’s undermining my confidence.  Today I will go to work and do my best again.   As I’ve told others that I’ve mentored, doing your best is the best you can do.   I believe that.

But it sure is exhausting.

 


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Mother's Day birds

My Mom always loved birds.  I have her bird book where she used to keep track of the birds she’d seen.  So I was excited when Mother’s Day here ended up being a big bird sighting day for me.

First up was a rose-breasted grosbeak.  I only see these beautiful birds a couple of times a year, always at my feeder.  They have black and white wings, a white chest and an absolutely beautiful rose colored bib. (click on the photo above to make it a little bigger.  He’s sitting over on the left side of the feeder)  I actually had two males at my feeder at the same time yesterday, then later in the afternoon as Katie and I sat in the sun on the deck one sat in the tree above us and sang.  I’ve never had the chance to listen to one before.  He was a very brave bird; he sat and sang even though Katie was going ballistic over a wayward chipmunk.  Once we went inside he popped back down to the feeder and sat there and ate for a long time.  Little pig.

I saw another one out at the park, up in a tree.  I’ve never seen one anywhere but at the feeder.  He was beautiful and I’d show you a picture of him out there if I could figure out how to import my photos to Adobe Photo-shop to crop the photo.

Then I hung the hummingbird feeder up  and though I didn’t see him I’m pretty sure I heard a hummer buzz past my head a few minutes later.

Earlier in the day I saw the little green heron fly through the back yard, the first sighting of the summer season.  We usually have one or two that nest behind our lot, back in the woods.  They make the worst noise as they come in for the evening, but they’re such cool birds I never mind.

I also saw a kingfisher over above the pond as Katie and I were driving to the park in the evening.  I rarely see one of those around here either, so that was an exciting thing to see.

And what was the most exciting, beautiful bird I saw yesterday?  Just as I was getting supper ready I walked past a window that overlooks the hummingbird feeder.  The sun was low in the west and the bright orange male oriole who was sitting on the pole drinking out of the ant moat above the feeder just glowed.  He stayed long enough, sipping at the water, for me to call my husband to see him, but not long enough for us to try to get a photo.  Trust me, he was absolutely gorgeous.  I have only seen one twice before, always first thing in the spring, and always checking out the hummingbird feeder.  I guess I need to get him some food of his own.  Soon.

So, given it was Mother’s Day, and given Mom loved seeing birds I’m thinking she just maybe sent them to visit me.   Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Thanks Mom!