I am settling in to a comfortable pace of spending weekdays working, dreaming all day of our future; my evenings spent in rapt conversation with my husband, playing with my daughter and packing things away, sorting things for sale and gifting. our weekends are becoming devoted to the hard and time intensive planning. I am amazed at how much just makign the decision to leave has helped Greg and I connect again and how easy conversation flows...not just planning conversation, but willingness to deeply listen and talk about our dreams. I am so glad that work knows my plans--there are no secrets there and though I sometimes feel a bit tenuous about sharing details of some plan or the other, there is a freedom in just not worrying about what they'll think, what they'll do. If the "worst" is getting fired, well, there is a plan for that...and honestly, the "worst" would actually be them just treating me poorly as I'd have a tremendously hard time handling that without just leaving.

We had a staff meeting today and I met a woman from our southern CA office. She was such a wonderful vivacious person, I could immediately see why T bought her company. She would be incredible to just sit and visit with--she has such a love for southern Ca--particularly Imperial Valley and knows such history of the area. She talked about Mexicali--how it is this huge town on the US/Mexican border, and there is a American-side town just on the other side. If Mexicali if the size of a portfolio, Calexico is the size of a postage stamp. 35% of the population of Mexicali has the legal right to go into and live in the US. For that reason, any time a house is built, goes up for rent etc in Calexico, it is immediately occupied. One of the problems in Calexico is that each morning a huge number of farm workers troupe accross the border with their cerveza bags. In the evenings, the workers leave for Mexicali, leaving their cerveza bags and waste products behind...on resident lawns more often than not. The City doesn't have the money to solve the problem. J, from the s. Ca office is arranging funding to help the City build a huge terminal where the workers can come to in the morning with consessions and bathrooms.

I grew excited listening to her talk. Such opportunities...how to describe...if I wanted to move down there, I could be employed full-time doing something completely new each month. I could learn the housing element business, help with grant funding, write documents in S. Ca. I thought about trying to work out a deal to do remote writing, or help market when I'm in the area. It matters not if any of these ideas come to fruition...its the fact that I suddenly realized that for us, bright, good people and management skills...we could do so many different things. As soon as you strip off the fear of having to have X amount of money week to week and step out of the cycle, you can explore dreams again. If we want to just sit for a month, we can. If we want to try our hand at being camp ground hosts in Texas we can, if I wanted to start a second career in planning I could, if I want to do some weird old combination of something else...I can do these things now.

These weeks have hammered home over and over the buddhist concept that each persons reality is entirely controlled by perception. We filter everything about our reality. 4 months ago, my "reality" was that I HAD to have a job making XXX amount of money. Today, that reality is completely obliterated.  ¶ 4:18 PM 0 comments

  My work situation is getting amusing some days. My boss phones me on her way to a meeting, telling me she had a sit down with the infamous "C" yesterday (of the "I'm telling the company about your travel plans" fame--gads, just looked below and that entire saga was missed on this website. I'll have to find my JW posts...). Boss says that she tried to have a civil discussion with C about general office stuff, touching bases to see how she is handling things and wanting to go over some issues C has with getting overwhelmed. [Let me back up to say, this is my job to assist boss, she isn't gossiping :) ] Boss says that the discussion didn't go anywhere she wanted it to and C uses it as a gripe session about how awful it is to be here after 3:30PM, the "boys" are so noisy, even goes on to say, "perhaps I [C] need to revise my idea of what a professional atmophere should be like. The atmosphere in this office is so unprofessional."

Ok--I am just cracking up and boss is laughing with me...what do you do with this? I am there everyday until 6PM--I hear these guys. They have been mouse quiet since previous blow up by C. There are, count them, 4 people in the back office including me! Unprofessional my ass. C is somehow stuck in manic mode, remembering just a few days of how bad they were and just wanting to vent over and over. I'm not looking for advice on this issue, just seeing the humor of it, but also thinking its really sad in a way. Poor boss, she just does not know how to deal with people issues and has had way more than her fair share lately. Is it wrong to just be happy I'm not in the hotseat in the middle of this one? :)

I've gone through stages in my life of being a total "advice giver" and being very hands-off. I've tried to adopt a more hands off approach in recent years, unless people directly ask for advice. Even then, I've tried to learn to bounce the question back, just asking questions back and not saying "I'd do X". Sometimes I see a person reacting in a certain way and I just want to say, do you realize that you are doing X or Y, because I know they just aren't seeing the forest for the trees. C talks a lot about "they say in recovery" and is working on several issues, so part of me thinks she'd take it for what it is -- constructive criticism, but part of me thinks, "JELLYFISH alert". LOL! I mean, this woman tells me constantly how she "prayed" about what to do in this situation or that--if her God isn't answering her correctly, what do I know :) I have just stopped interacting with her for the most part. Not worth it.

Honestly, I think its unfortionate in many ways that work just isn't a place where you can be so direct. I'm working on being direct and honest in my life, but finding that work ...well. that's not true. You can be honest and direct at work, but you just have to pick and choose the appropriate people and place to do it.

I've come to a balanced place finally about an issue that had been bothering me in the past--the group of gals thing. I realized that A and A haven't emailed at all even after I posted to the list about Greg and I leaving the state. I just realized that they are just in such a different space right now that friendship with me just isn't in the cards. I haven't figured out, as some online friends asked, why it was so important to me that this group be my friends, but I've realized that I can go forward without being "attached" to the situation or fretting anymore. No scene, no comment needed, just move on.

I forgot to post a random happening--an old college friend that I had dropped out of touch with suddenly called the other day. He and his girlfriend had become friends with Greg and I a couple years ago then we had a falling out--an adult, we just stopped calling one another falling out, not a fight. I had just thought, Oh, they are out of my life, too bad so sad, and then he called. Of course, the sceptic in me told Greg, I bet they called because they are getting married. Guess what...they are getting married! LOL.

Phoebe produced her first sign yesterday! She 'said' puppy--to us, sticking her tongue out. I always make the sign while reading books and she just looked at me and copied me! I was so excited and told her what a smart girl she was and she kept doing it over and over, looking so pleased. The rest of the night she just signed it over and over, bringing different books to us to show us the "puppies". She thinks the Tiger is the best puppy:) [meaning, she points mostly to puppies in the books, but particularly likes tiger pictures and seems to want a word for them too, in the meantime, they are "Puppy"!]

I am continually amazed at how sometimes children will just pop into a new developmental stage. Everything is gradual and builds on previous skills, but somedays certain things will suddenly click and it seems so sudden. I just melt with her new skill--playing "chase"--she crawls towards the kitchen and stops to see if you are chasing her, when she sees you look, she jumps and gets so happy, crawling away as fast as she can. She suddenly started climbing too--I came home and she had climbed on top of Greg's guitar case--I pointed this out and Greg says, yes, she does that now! She can't walk, but she will stand on things that amaze me--one last night--her high chair tray was on the floor by the TV, on top she gets, carefully balencing and moving back and forth. It rocks, so isn't a stable surface, but she takes it all in stride. Another is crusing on top of blankets and miscellaneous oddly shaped objects.

The weather today is so beautiful. I went out for a walk and layed in the grass, looking up at the blue sky. I think about being able to go out into the weather at my leisure--what heaven.

Planning for the adventure...I was looking online at something or the other and reading an RV forum. I realized that simply moving into an RV doesn't guarantee leaving the consumerism behind. People manage to turn consumeristic about anything. Whether its getting the newest and latest trailer or buying the newest coffee making gadet. Greg and I have our work cut out. At least there is less room for Stuff!
  ¶ 5:05 PM 0 comments