Home, Sweet (?) Home

"A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body." - Benjamin Franklin

I'm fairly sure I have had a rant about this before, but it's bugging me again. Why does everyone make being an adult look like it is easy when this is clearly lies?

Lemons, it was lemons that really got me today. How is it that at my parents my mum always have lemon, they never go bad, and I am fairly sure she doesn't use them for anything. Am I being fooled, are they fake? I am sure I have used them for baking before, so what is this witchcraft?

Also stuff going wrong, all of it, all the time. Why does everything go wrong? I get one thing fixed, I settle down and think I am going to get a break, a chance to relax and enjoy my home. Then the next thing goes, or series of things. It is unbelievably frustrating and I feel like I never get a break.

Then there are all the things that haven't gone wrong but need doing. Grass, does it ever stop growing? Get the mower out, fix the "issue" the mower has developed since it was last used, mow the by now jungle like lawn, put mower away, turn around........jungle! The same goes for housework, shopping, finances. Having a home is like having a child in it's own right, with a constant unending stream of wants which rapidly become needs.

Honestly I have to go to work, I have to manage my house child, I have to solve the mystery of sneaky lemons. No wonder I regularly feel a little frayed.

It's oh so quiet

"Saying nothing...sometimes says the most." - Emily Dickinson

I can't really write much again today. I am tired, I am fed up and Thumper's Mum said if you can't said if you can't say anything nice.

My work was cold, the heating is broken.

My computer was broken, nothing new.

I'm shattered for no particular reason.

I have nothing nice to say.

I do have chocolate.

I'm going to go do that.

Night.

Cat got your tongue?

"Those who speak the loudest often have nothing to say." - Unknown

I'll be honest my lovelies I honestly don't know what to say today. The cat has well and truly got my tongue  My brain on the other hand is buzzing. Busy day at work, meetings, tasks, lunch with friends. Busy evening at college, lots of new information, and lots of self reflection as is the nature of the beast.* To be honest I would love to say I worried about the fact that my offering tonight is terribly sub-standard, but frankly I'm too tired.

On that note I will love you and head to bed. Please feel free to take wagers on whether or not I manage to sleep. Na Night.

*Level 2 Counselling Skills

Computer says NO

"Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy." - Joseph Campbell

So for what feels like the twelve thousandth time, this morning I dragged myself to work only to find my computer wasn't working. It is Monday, I got out of my warm comfortable bed to face a mean cold world at 7am. Despite the dark, greyness of this mornings winter dawn I still wrenched myself out of the house and negotiated the commute to work, the commute where other people are allowed to drive on the same roads as me. I made the choice between parking in a free spot and walking for ten minutes, or parking in a paid for spot and not walking. Actually that decision was made for me by the other people who are allowed on the roads making my journey ten minutes longer than it should be. I then sacrificed myself to the harsh fluorescent lighting, the unpredictable temperature fluctuations and soup of other peoples post-Christmas germs that is the office. Only to once again spend an hour and a half trying fruitlessly to login to my computer.

It took 35 mins for there to be any sign that IT recognised that there was a problem. I tried calling myself, but the line was constantly telling me all operators were busy, which suggests other folk were reporting the same thing. It wasn't just me who couldn't get logged on, but every fellow desktop user in my team and doubtlessly that means every desktop user in the organisation. Generally the laptop users, mostly consisting of those who manage the desktop users, do not have this issue. Their laptops rarely fail to allow them to do their work, this makes it quite difficult to manage relations between the two groups. It is an unfortunate truth that human beings find empathy difficult, especially when they have no experience on which to hang that empathy.

Of course the biggest issue we face is the demoralisation of the workforce due to this on-going issue. I believe if my maths is correct I alone have lost nearly two working weeks since August 2012 due to these continually occurring issues. I don't always go in to work with the Monday morning blues. Sometimes I am all game face and ready to go, but that rarely lasts longer than half an hour into one of these little "moments" our IT system likes to have.

With no solution on the horizon however I suspect I am going to have to learn to live with it, perhaps acceptance can be located at the bottom of yet another cup of tea.

The Simplest of Tasks

Isn't it amazing how quickly things can go from good, or even just fine, to a complete disaster? Take last night for example I didn't hit complete disaster, but I did find miffed, drained and bordering on chaotic, it's the same principle. More to the point I got to the stage where you wonder, at which moment, your day took the turning that ended up here.

My day started pretty well, yes I was at work all day, but I had been listening to podcasts while raising countless invoices, I'd had a run at lunch time and I got a moment to jot down some ideas for a short story. I did an errand after work which took less time than I'd expected, spoken to a good friend and then visited another friend with a new baby. I popped to the shop and headed home, set for a good evening. Then everything seemed to go to hell.

I tried to undertake what was supposed to be a 'simple' task, but I could not get everything to work the way it should. I knew it wasn't that hard, which meant it frustrated me all the more. The kind of frustrated you get, when you know you should just leave it alone or you'll make it worse, but you end up fidgety and uncomfortable when you do walk away. You have to keep going back, having another go, like when you were 8 years old and unable to stop yourself picking a scab on your knee.

Things went down hill from that point onwards. I had promised myself I would just do that one job and then I would sort out the mess in the house whilst cooking dinner and getting my bits ready for the morning, so that after dinner I could have a nice sit down. That's not how it happened. I had to give up on the 'simple' task to put dinner on, but I couldn't concentrate on getting anything done properly. Even when I was eating my meal I couldn't concentrate. I kept having another look, trying again, getting more and more worked up. I almost had a little cry. I boiled the kettle at least five times, but never did have a cup of tea, thinking about it, perhaps that's where I was going wrong.

Eventually I realised with a horrible sinking feeling that it was past bedtime, I had nothing ready for the next day and I needed to stop. It was only when I finally did sit down that it dawned on me, maybe it wasn't the, surprisingly difficult, 'simple' task that was bothering me. Up until that point my week had been non stop, my feet had barely touched the group, I'd gone from one thing to the next, to the next and everything had run like clock work. If one piece of the puzzle had slipped, everything would have gone awry and I wouldn't have been able to catch up with myself. So it was a really good job that everything had gone to plan and .............wait a minute. That 'simple' task had been the blade across my Achilles heal. I talked before about how important it is to have a sit down and take time for you. That's all well and good, but if it's built into a day that is perfectly timed down to the last second and something slips, either me time or your sanity, is going to get lost vey quickly. So there is another lesson that I have recognised, if not yet fully learnt.

In case you were wondering, that 'simple' task was to put a screen protector on to my new tablet to keep it all clean and shiny. What actually happened was I put it on upside down, approximately 45 degrees from straight, with several bubbles and some mystery fluff trapped underneath it. Having now calmed down and reflected though I have realised that what is truly important in all of this is I HAVE A TABLET!