Into each life....

Today I'm going to be loading tote boxes with product and piling them into the car, along with tents and tables. I'm getting ready to go do a weekend craft fair in Milton, Florida. Setup is tonight, and the show is Saturday and Sunday.

I've found a sitter for Bander, who will take care of him until I'm done, since Saturday is a long day - twelve hours. I take him with me to a lot of fairs and markets, but that's a long time for him to just sit there, wondering what the hell Mama is waiting for.

And guess what the weather prediction says?



That's right, ladies and gents, I'm going to go stand outside in the rain for twelve hours straight and see whether my tent attracts lightning.

But you gotta go try. Dammit.

Busy Bee

Sorry I'm late, but I picked up an office temp job for a few days, and since the dog hasn't learned to make soap yet, the goldbricker, I was filing during the day and soaping at night and thus had no time left for blogging.

So, a couple of quick updates - one, we found a lovely little open field only a couple of blocks from our house that we walk the dog to, early in the morning. This is a good view of the bayou across the street from us (mostly it's blocked by houses).




The only odd thing was the moment when we figured out that it wasn't always an empty lot - it quite clearly used to have a house there, and I'll bet you five bucks that it was flattened by Hurricane Ivan. There's a lot immediately next to our house that has nothing left but a foundation and a sidewalk, and I'm sure that it was an Ivan casualty, too. We didn't realize how hard our neighborhood got hit. I can't tell if that makes me feel terrified, or comfortable because seriously, what are the odds that we'd get another direct hit like that?

Besides, I had to run from fires, and we missed the recent earthquake, so I'm prepared to flee storms if I have to. We got a piece of very useful advice from a native: "If it's over a Cat 3, take your kids and your wallet and run." Okey dokey!

And to end on a positive note, I know I showed you the tree in my front yard a few months ago. Here's the back yard tree, even bigger and a little more beautiful.


Just don't talk to me about rakes right now.

Homework, Lesson Three: Schedules Are Not Just For Trains

I think a lot of us who are working for ourselves, from home, are drawn to it partly because we all imagine that we'll be free as birds, able to do what we want to, when we want to do it.

Pardon me while I kill myself laughing.

Because here's what really happens; work is often erratic, especially in a growing business and a difficult economy. When the opportunities to work crop up, you'll grab them. For an online retail business, what this means is some days with no orders, where you bite your nails and wonder if you're doing everything wrong, and some days with so many orders that you work up a sweat trying to get the boxes packed.

If you're lucky, the cash flow averages out at a point where you can make the rent payment. It's likely to be some months a bit over and some a bit short, just to make life really really exciting.

Your workday will be at the mercy of the weather, the number and duration of walks the dog thinks he needs, the amount of laundry that's gotten backlogged, the incoming orders, the upcoming shows, and the availability of supplies. You will have moments of overwhelming success followed by crushing bouts of self-doubt and visions of living on the street.

There is only one way to maintain sanity in the middle of all this.

Make a schedule. I know, you quit so you didn't have to adhere to a schedule, but guess what? You now have the toughest boss on the planet, and it's YOU. You'll work harder for yourself than you ever have for another person. Want to cope with this terrible boss?


I know. It's awful. Make a schedule.

You need to have times that you work, and times that you don't. Your family and friends need to know what your working hours are, so they don't assume that "working from home" means "available for annoying errands and social engagements". You need to pay attention, too, so that you don't decide that your morning would be best spent eating leftover pizza and watching "Revenge of the Nerds".

And your time off needs to be time spent NOT working. Just sneaking in a few minutes of printing labels turns into hours of work if you're not careful. And off time is an important thing - it keeps the creative juices flowing, prevents burnout, and makes you a lot more fun to be around.

Time off does not mean eating leftover pizza and watching "Revenge of the Nerds", by the way. It means getting your ass OUT OF THE HOUSE. Go somewhere, do something! If you work at home, getting a change of scenery is absolutely vital. Even a walk around the block is a start.


Now, why are you sitting here reading this? You should either be working or playing. Go!

Detours and Delays

I know, I said the store would be open again by now, or within a day or two. So of course this post is a list of excuses and reasons that I was wrong.

First, when you move long distance, it only makes sense to move the minimum amount of stuff possible. So the cupboards are bare around here. I ran through all the raw materials before we left, then sold off all the stock, so I'm starting over.

Most of the suppliers I use were closed until the first week in January - so I couldn't even order anything until then. Things are arriving now - we've had a parade of trucks dropping pallets in the driveway, which is of great interest to all the neighbors and has given me plenty of time to practice with the hand truck.

And then there's the ergonomics of setting up the workspace. Deciding what goes where takes a few attempts and plenty of shuffling, either moving big heavy boxes and pails or lots of little tinkly glass bottles full of expensive essential oils.

And the dehumidifier should be arriving in a few days. It wasn't in stock, of course, but it's a necessity here in Florida. Oh, and the office has to be organized. And all the business paperwork has to be terminated in California and re-filed in Florida.

It's like starting over from scratch, really. And I'm old and slow. But I'm pushing, hard, and I'll be back as soon as I can. Really really.

Let There Be Light

I wanted to write more about other crazy people at my day job, but it turns out that the woman who cries about the alignment of staples is just way ahead of the pack, and cannot stop providing me with blog fodder.

Here’s the current problem.

Recently, we started an effort to go more “green” This is corporate-speak for “let’s make stupid empty gestures while changing nothing”. For individual people, being green might have actual meaning, but filtered through layers of committees and focus groups and middle management, it just ends up being stupid.

They went into every single office and installed motion detecting light switches. They did this because there are one or two people who always left the office lights on when they left at night. This is not such a problem, because one, the cleaning crew comes around after everyone leaves, and they turn ALL the lights off, and two, most of the guilty light-wasters have been laid off and nobody really cares whether they’re sitting at home in the dark or not.

It probably would have been cheaper to go tell the remaining idjits to turn off the lights, but that would have been (gasp!) CONFRONTATIONAL. So the passive-aggressive pantywaists just gave all of us motion sensors.

I don’t WANT a motion sensor. It destroys what little dignity I have been pretending to have, because it turns your lights off if you stop too long to think, and you have to do a lot of arm flapping to turn it back on, so several times I’ve been caught sitting in my chair doing a spirited impression of a wounded whooping crane. Also, I always turned my lights off when I left, and my sensor is way too sensitive, so it turns on my lights when people walk by my office door. Therefore, I am using MORE light than I was before they gave me this great “green” device.

And of course there’s more. There’s always more, isn’t there?

The Staple Weeper is worried about flashing light, because she heard once that it might cause fits in epileptics. She does not have epilepsy THAT SHE KNOWS OF but thinks it is better to be safe than sorry. She is VERY concerned that my office light turns on when she goes past my office to the ladies room, because she might have a seizure. And she goes to the ladies room a lot, because she is an obsessive flosser. (What a shock, huh?)

Now, a normal person might solve this problem by walking down the center of the hallway, not so close to my office door, therefore not triggering the light. But that would be a NORMAL person. What SHE does instead, is to wait for me to leave, and then run over and immediately shut my door.

When the cleaning crew comes, they’ve been given instructions to leave closed door offices alone. So the cleaning crew does not come into my office, and they do not throw away my trash. I am sitting here with four days worth of sandwich wrappers and old Yoplait cups, which are beginning to reek a bit, because the Weeper is obsessed with closing the door so she can be sure she’s not going to have a spontaneous attack of epilepsy. Asking her to, and I’m quoting here...

...just results in her sobbing, and then doing the exact same thing that very night.

This is why I was in human resources this morning pointing out that our office should have a mental health professional on call 24/7. Monk is cool when he’s on his TV show and all, but hella annoying to work with.

I have two things I’m going to do to solve this.

One, I’m going to cover the sensor with a little piece of tape when I leave at night. Two, I’m going to wait until the Weeper isn’t looking and put my aging sandwich wrappers into her office trashcan.

I should be angry but I’m too busy giggling.

This should be good.

Driving MeCrazy

You may remember this, well, it's changed somewhat.

I’ve been driving to the office lately, because the dog is leading a very complicated life. He’s still in the cast, and likely to stay in it for another month, which is driving him absolutely bonkers. On top of that, his separation anxiety is pretty much through the roof right now – we’re working with a behaviorist/trainer, but one of the keys to success is getting enough exercise and of course he isn’t allowed to have ANY exercise, so he’s losing his mind and taking mama right down the drain with him.

So, I need to be ready to rush home at a moment’s notice. And that means that I cannot take the train, which has a set schedule. There are trains that leave Irvine at fifteen minutes past inconvenient, followed by a later train at waytoolate thirty. Sometimes those trains are late, and when a train is late, they mean it – I had a couple of nights where I sat on the tracks for three hours, wondering if I would have time for a shower before work started again.

What I’m doing instead is driving, through heavy traffic, every damn day.

The worst portion of my commute, by far, is the bit close to my office, deep in the heart of Orange County, California. And I have a couple of words about Orange County:

Heidi and Spencer Pratt live here.
And fit in without being noticeably worse than everyone else. Since Heidi and Spencer are two of the most horrible, odious people who have ever lived, this should tell you just how awful the OC is.

It’s filled with people who behave like complete self-important tools at all times. The job losses during the recession hit Orange County hard, and a lot of these folks are living on the brink of financial doom, but by god they worked hard at being so superficial and pretentious and they’ll still be yakking into cell phones via cutesy Borg-style headsets when they’re bedding down in the shelters.

If they have to sleep in cardboard boxes, they’ll check the brand of the product that used to be packed inside before crawling in.

I’m generalizing, of course. But it’s my blog, so I’m allowed.

Anyway, this population segment manages to be wildly obnoxious while standing in line, so just imagine how they act when they all run get in their Beemers and get on the freeway. I swear, I spend two hours every day on the Sphincter Expressway. That gives me a certain amount of expertise, and therefore I think I can offer some advice.


...and stops talking on our cell phones and sits up very straight while holding the wheel at ten and two, we probably saw that highway patrol car hiding in the bushes. Clearly you didn’t, and you made a point of flipping me off as you cut around me going ninety.

I’m sure you understand why I was pointing and laughing a mile later while you were getting your ticket. Next time, you should assume that the rest of the group knows something that you don’t, and fall into step.

Especially if you can see that it is at least four car lengths of space, and your lane is stopped. You might be tempted to suddenly change lanes and floor it, but be aware that you might slam into the back of a stopped car just five car lengths ahead of you. I saw some random jackass do this exact thing last week, so take the time to look ahead more than 100 feet before you test your car’s zero-to-sixty performance.


It does no good to tailgate me, then swerve wildly into the next lane and back into this one, if you have not noticed that there is a reason I am going slow. I am trapped behind a cement mixer, and so are you, and being pissed off at me is not going to make me go any faster.

What it WILL do, because I am getting pretty tired of your antics, is make me very careful to make sure that any openings for getting around said truck are just big enough for me. You’re still stuck back there?

Awwww. That’s too bad.

Somebody is changing the tire. It’s over on the side of the road. It isn’t anybody famous. Nothing to see here.

Can we all just quit staring and GO?

There’s nothing to do down here. You are supposed to be up in Orange County clogging up traffic and hogging the good restaurant tables and acting like assholes. What could you possibly want in San Diego? It can’t be good.

So that’s my summer.

Asphalt and insanity.

I can’t wait for fall.

If You're Crazy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

A lot of you know that I’m considering making some major changes in my life. The economy seems primed to cram changes down my throat, so I may as well catch that wave and surf it on in. One of the things that’s likely to change is my daytime employment.

I’ve know this was possible for months on end, and I’ve posted about layoffs here in the past, so I’ve had a lot of time to envision how this would all wind down and what the aftermath would be. Hell, I’ve even started cleaning out my desk – I’ve been here for eleven years, so I have a truly astonishing amount of personal crap that needs to be eliminated.

While you visualize walking out the door, leaving behind a spotless office, you naturally imagine your goodbyes. And there is one woman in particular that I cannot wait to say goodbye to. She’s a wackadoo of major proportions. A bad case of OCD, coupled with a severe mean streak and the tendency to cry if she doesn’t get her way. (Nic is laughing when she’s reading this, because she knows exactly who I mean.)

Years ago, I saw this woman threw a giant public screaming fit because the document copies that had been delivered to her had the corner staples at the wrong angle. Seriously. She cried, threw things, insisted that everyone was being mean to her on purpose, and told the entire office that we were lazy because we lacked her attention to detail. Apparently the copier puts the staples parallel to the top page edge, whereas our heroine the nutjob thinks they should be at a 45-degree angle. Then she started wailing like a five year old (complete with hiccups and snot bubbles) and ran away to the ladies’ room.

She does this crap ALL. THE. TIME.

I’ve tried to be sympathetic to her, because she’s very clearly troubled, but she’s so darn mean that it’s difficult. She keeps lists of imagined slights by people and distributes them regularly. It’s hard to say, “aw, poor thing” when HR is standing in your doorway with the latest list of what you did during the past year.

Her malicious insanity is legendary.

So, when I leave here, do I say something to her? Like, “You’ve been horrible, I hope I never see you again?”

No, too mean. I could say, “I beg of you, get help.” The problem, of course, is that she has no idea that she’s batshit crazy, and it seems too mean-spirited to tell her.

I am not by nature a mean person, so I’m sure when the moment arrives I’ll just sneak out the back door and not say anything.

Though I am giggling at the idea of spending my last week sneaking into her files and stapling every single document on all four sides.
PS – if you freak out and have crying fits in your workplace on a regular basis, you’re batshit crazy, too.

See, I’m not afraid to be mean in cyberspace!

I think I may have run out of Zen.

I was being all calm and stress-free and stuff, when things took a sudden turn and I started having to hack my way through a briar patch of stupidity.

So that I don’t give too much detail, here are a few notes to the guilty parties.

And if you decide that the shuttle is going to start waiting an extra ten minutes for late trains, I should find out some way OTHER than hearing two drivers gossip. I wouldn’t have noticed that, had I not been wondering why we were so effin’ late.

Of course, you don’t want it to impact you in any way except for the warm fuzzy feeling. However, I am taking public transportation, which is run by morons (see above), and glaring at me as I rush in the door from the bus stop will not make it any earlier. It’s only a two block walk; I promise I’m not stopping off to go shopping or anything on the way in. And since I ran part of the way, I am only three minutes late, so you should GET A GRIP.

And I warn you now, if you increase my interest rates on my credit card, I’m going to stop using it. I’m also going to move my money market account, wee though it may be, to elsewhere. Now you don’t have my interest income AND your cash reserves have gone down. I wonder if anyone there can do math? I suspect that the answer is NO, and therein lies your problem. I look forward to your demise.

However, I must mention your cupcakes. They are hella cute, I have to admit. I know you got a big book all about cupcake decorating, and you put a lot of effort into them. It really shows. You have them decorated like flowers, with little red M&M’s that you’ve drawn on with frosting so they look like ladybugs. They are adorable, and it must have taken hours.

I wish you’d stop bringing them into the office and hovering to make sure that everyone is eating one, though. Or, alternatively, that you would put even one quarter the effort into learning how to bake, because your damn cupcakes taste like Spackle with frosting on top. If I have to choke down one more of these vile lumps I’m going to lose it. I am all out of polite, so back off and take your adorable crapcakes with you.

It’s not even lunch time.

This is going to be a long day.

coughcoughcoughHACKcough

I am sick.

I have a terrible head cold.

And yet...



... due to my relentlessly inconvenient and unfortunately necessary day job, I am in the office, sixty miles from home.

Jesse was kind enough to put me to bed early last night, and that helped a LOT, but it sure didn’t cure me completely.

I will spare you the disgusting symptoms, but this is going to be a long day. I am only going to make it through with many drugs, most of which will slow time to a crawl and kill a bunch of brain cells.

My only consolation is that I can run around to the offices of the people I don’t like and sneeze on their keyboards, lick their computer mice, and breathe all over their phone receivers.

coughsniffleCRAP.

Which Road?

I ran across an interesting article today – Weekday Misery, Weekend Pleasure,
in a blog called The Simple Dollar. It’s an interesting read, and ties in with some other stuff I’ve been seeing about people who are using the recession as a time to reinvent themselves.

I find this dangerously enticing.

Many of us out there – heck, most of us, I’m sure – have things that we do to pay the bills that are less than pleasant. This is because things that more fun than a barrel of monkeys get done for free or next to nothing, and you’re unlikely to get big bucks for it. However, that doesn’t mean that you need to spend your life doing something that’s sucking the life out of you, draining your soul bit by bit.

The first step to take is glaringly obvious, especially in the current economy. Which bills are you paying, and can you get rid of them? Is there something you can do without, if it means doing without that job you hate? In my case, getting rid of the day job would get rid of a horrible commute – several hundred dollars and at least four hours a day, gone! That’s a pretty big incentive.

Then there’s this part – what do you DO all day?

Do you shuffle paper?









Do you dye poodles pink to match their owner’s handbags?









Do you save lives?









Do you file the serial numbers off mysteriously acquired valuable property?





Do you scrape gum off the underside of restaurant tables?








Do you write fortunes for a cookie company?






And when you do whatever it is that you do – how do you FEEL at the end of the day?

I’ve had a job that included gum-scraping, and whoo did it SUCK. And at the end of the day I felt dirty and abused. I’m not sure what school one attends to become a poodle stylist or an author of cookies, but doesn’t it sound like a wonderful idea; to re-invent yourself?

I know the economy is a mess, but what better time to decide what you’re going to be when you grow up? I mean, I know we all decided once, but look how that turned out. It seems reasonable to get a do-over.

When I was VERY young I was convinced that I would grow up to be Aquaman. While I could probably buy the spiffy waterproof hero suit, and gender reassignment surgery has come a long way, I don’t have any idea how to have gills installed. So I’m going to assume that Aquaman is out as a career option.

I suppose I could become an underwater welder, but that just isn’t the same, somehow. I wonder if this is where the whole Seamonkey obsession started?

Anyway – point, and I do have one, is that when you come out of this period of vast national upheaval, do you want to be on the same path? Or would you like to travel a different road? I’m going to be doing some heavy thinking.

I bet a lot of you are, too.

Stress Fractures

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this lately, but people are stressed out right now. I don’t think I’ve had a phone call in the past week that wasn’t an argument, someone hoping to get something they weren’t entitled to, or to get out of something they’d committed to.

There’s one gentleman who calls me at work, at least once a week, to complain about a real estate transaction that took place in 1974. Nothing I’ve said (“Dude, I don’t know what happened, I was in sixth grade at the time”) has convinced him that his calls are misplaced. I’ve gotten phone calls asking me for money I don’t have, to pay debts that I don’t owe. I get honked at every time I’m in the crosswalk, because although I have the little green “walk” guy telling me to go, I seem to be preventing some douchebag in a Beemer from running a red light.

All in all, there are a lot more riders on the crazy train lately.

As much as the crazy was starting to rub off, I decided I wasn’t going to rent it head space. Just because I’m dealing with lunatics doesn’t mean I have to be one, ya know?

So.

Here are some ways to keep from taking somebody else’s problems home with you, and ways to decompress after those encounters. I can’t take full credit for these ideas – they come from a super-cool blog called Zen Habits (http://zenhabits.net/).

First of all, you have to be Teflon. If somebody has an incorrect idea, or a desperate need to lay blame, that doesn’t mean you have to accept it. You don’t need to fight or argue, because that drags you down, but you don’t need to passively carry their problems around with you, either. Let it roll off and drift away. Someone else’s feelings of resentment, anger, sadness, or fear all have one thing in common. They belong to someone else.

Mind you, I’m not saying you shouldn’t care about people. Absolutely you should! And of course, you have responsibility for your actions. But you don’t have to be the owner of every crazy idea that gets tossed your way. Kids automatically know this – I’m rubber, and you’re glue.

Next, try disconnecting for a while. If the office is where things are tough, carry your lunch outside and relax under a tree while you munch. Or take a short walk to get away. Heck, lock yourself in the ladies room if you have to, but get some time to stop and breathe without being hounded. The negative stuff is in a forum or chat room? Close that browser window! Distressing phone calls? I know this is heresy, but ----- turn off the cell phone. Shut off the Crackberry. Very few of us on earth are so important that we need to be available at every minute of every day. If you’re not the Pope or the leader of a world power, we can get by without you for ten minutes.

And you know, without me even mentioning it, that I think a hot bath is a great hiding and destressing place. Get into a hot tub, with your favorite soap or bath bombs or loofah or what have you, and do absolutely nothing until you’re all pruney and relaxed.

Get some unconditional love. Pet a dog, or skritch a cat. They don’t care what you weigh, or what your credit score is, or whether your mother said you were a failure. My dog loves me even when I have horrible bed head and morning breath – it just doesn’t matter to him. Even a cranky, early-morning not-awake mama is aces in his book. Fur therapy works wonders!

And be good to yourself and the people around you. Things are tough all over.

PS – As soon as I finished writing this, I realized that I could do something nice for you guys, and that would help make my little corner of the world nicer, too. So if you’re ordering anything from me for the next ten days, just say “blog post” in your comments to me, and I’ll give you a free bar of soap, your choice of scents. You can use this on my website or on Etsy. Just promise you’ll use it to relax and unwind.