Behind the Scenes - the REAL Days of Our Lives

Sometimes when I look back at things I write down in all of these web 2.0 tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger), I feel pretty shallow. After all, this is where I don't really share what is going on in my life. Just those mini thoughts I have along the path of REAL LIFE.

Today I'm not having mini thoughts. I'm having REAL LIFE thoughts. You know, how things are really going behind the scenes.

My past posts (this week) are a bunch of happy photos with family, random posts about how people don't like Peanut Butter Oreo cookies and how I want to be just like the lady who blogged about Julie Childs.

Really - not very deep stuff.

What is really going on in my mind and at my house?

- I am trying to eat right and am still gaining weight.
- I exercise and I still gain weight.
- I don't always get my monthly reports in on time for our primary attendance records.
- I am dealing with a lot of people that are not only non-proactive, but can't even do the basics of their jobs. And, even if they are proactive, they aren't experienced enough to see the big picture or know how much effort it really takes to do a job.
- I lead meetings every day where 80% of the people think they know more than me about our development process. Most have never been involved in a development project. I've managed over 100 development efforts in this environment. I can tell you the successes, issues, failures, risks, etc. within the first 10-15 minutes of interacting with the team on any given project. That, my friends, comes with experience (experience = failures + lessons learned + time + success).
- I fight work battles that those in higher pay grades should be fighting. Most of the time I don't get acknowledgement for fighting those battles. Sometimes it hurts me professionally.
- I'm helping people secretly in ways that have impact on my own health, wealth and mental attitude.
- I am emotionally, physically, and mentally dealing with pains in my own life as well as the lives of many friends.
- I get bugged when I don't have enough ME time.
- I didn't clean the dishes for three days this week because I ran out of dishwasher detergent, even though I had at least 10 little bottles of regular dish washing detergent and could have easily transferred the dishes to the sink and washed them.
- I de-junked each room halfway last weekend leaving all kinds of things half done in every room of the house...further driving my mind crazy.
- I have dreamed up rude things to say to people that bug me, but being a little verbally challenged - these eloquent quips come out about four hours after the fact.
- I sometimes dislike Sundays because it means another day of meetings, which means it is not a day of rest.
- I hate when I don't get to go on a walk on any given day.
- Sometimes I really don't have time for you, but it is me, not you, that has the problem.


Ok, each sentence starts with an "I," but "I" am not the only one that tries to stay positive, but has to deal with REAL LIFE. You do too.

Maybe I'm just cranky today. I threw up all night, had a horrible migraine type headache, laid in bed participating in a two hour conference call that involved a lot of unnecessary wordsmithing of a document. That was followed by different groups of people yelling at me through email because they want to start projects right now because they have to use their money by the end of September. Um, I'm not perfect, but planning does help a bit...especially if done 10-11 months in the past.

So, perhaps I'm just tired. I can't even take a real sick day without working seven hours with my computer, blackberry, iPhone and notebook in bed with me.

I warned you. This post is about REAL LIFE.

Now, since I'm being real, and I'm hungry - I'm going to grab me something to eat that I probably shouldn't eat and go back to bed since I can't take a walk.

It might be best if I go into my cave for a few days before writing another post. Perhaps by then I will be back to my shallow insights which may be more appealing than these REAL LIFE rants.

Headache

I had an intense headache today and I hadn't had one in a while. Wow! It is amazing how incapacitating these things can be. It gives me a lot of empathy for people that live with constant pain.

As a result, I had to miss an event this evening with the friend that has multiple cancers. She wasn't too happy and probably thought that I needed to get over it. After all, she was going and she is going through chemo.

I came home and went to bed and part of me felt guilty, but part of me didn't want to be a road hazard either.

It is sometimes hard to know when to take care of ourselves and when to take care of others. Yet, the airplane flight attendants often say it best.

Isn't it something like - "Put your mask on first and then assist others...?"

I tried to look it up on the Internet and found this blog from a mother - http://kunderwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/first-put-on-your-oxygen-mask/ .

Good advice for many parts of life.

Being ill and being mean

A few years ago I lived in a huge high rise apartment building. It was close to a metro, a park, all kinds of shopping and there were about 17 apartments of single people that I regularly interacted with at church, in DC, on trips, and in the complex itself. However, there was a large population of older people in the building that we all got to know because they would sit outside the elevators talking to each other and saying hi to everyone going to and fro.

One of the people was this little lady we referred to as "squirrel lady" because she would take walks around the grounds feeding the squirrels. I got to know her just through little conversations going to and from work and other excursions. She started to make friends with all of my friends and she would always be excited to see all of her "Mormon girls."

About two years into living there, I decided to quit my job. Up to that point I'd worked in a very busy financial firm in downtown DC with month after month of 14-15 hour days only switch to a dot.com company at the height of the dot.com boom(March 2000)...which soon became a bomb/bust. I finally needed a break and was the lucky 1st employee of a very successful virtual company that allowed me to work at home. Suddenly I was considered a regular fixture in the apartment building because I would do errands around lunch time or take a walk for different breaks. I think some of the "old" people thought I was one of them for some reason.

Squirrel lady, in particular, and I would talk frequently and formed a pretty good friendship.

Then she got sick.

I went to visit her and she was a little moody.

I went and visited her again in a care center when she was admitted. She liked me one minute and acted disgruntled the rest of the visit.

I visited her a last time and she went into a rage when I was talking to her. She thought I was the nurse coming to give her some horrible medicine that she hated.

Not long after that she passed away.

That experience really hurt. I didn't know why I was being treated that way.

However, there is someone that I've referred to before that is ill - very ill. I have felt overwhelmed the last few weeks, but have still tried to take time to talk on the phone.

I did so today and experienced that same kind of feeling. It feels so betraying when you are trying to help and you end up feeling like dirt.

Perhaps people that take care of loved ones with a long term illness have experienced this in their life AND after putting a lot more love and attention into those relationships than I have with mine. They must be saints to endure these types of emotions on a daily basis.

Anyway, now that I know this pattern, it makes the hurt feelings last for just a couple of minutes because I know that they would never act this way prior to feeling ill.

Even so, I will admit to being a little leery to make the next call.

Sinus Issues

I'm about sick of my sinuses. Can we get them taken out like we can our tonsils and appendix?

Most likely not, but it's made my head all blown up and it's difficult to enjoy life.

However, I have had a lot of topics floating around in my blown up head and I've promised myself that I will write them down tonight and tomorrow. It is time for my blogger therapy again - just writing it all down.

And, if anyone has some good ideas about how to get the sinuses just right, I'm open to hearing them.

Sickness - feeling so bad you think you will die

This weekend, as I've stated before, was a whirlwind of going out to eat with friends. Great conversation and a full stomach later, I was glad to just go home and have a nice quiet evening on Saturday night. I did and I even went to bed earlier than usual.

Around 2:30 a.m. I woke up to the worst headache I've ever had in my life and with a queasy feeling in my stomach. It was beyond normal cramps and I went to the kitchen to get some more drugs. I tried to go back to sleep and ended up getting up to walk around. Not fun, but it made it feel better for some reason. After a few minutes of that .... the stomach gave way and I knelt for the next half hour in submission to the great porcelain throne.

At this point you typically feel better, but the head was still pounding. I thought about calling my boyfriend to tell him that I was dying and that perhaps I should go to the doctor, but it was after 2:30 a.m. and you really want to be sure of these things, right?

So, I took a very long shower. So long that the water went cold. That never happens to me. When I got out I saw that I had a voicemail. It was my boyfriend. He had all of my symptoms and said he thought he was going to die! Goodness. Two people dying at the same exact moment in the middle of the night? Hmmm....something isn't right.

We had both eaten at Don Pablos on Friday night and had both eaten at Cracker Barrel on Saturday for a late lunch. But, we had both eaten at other restaurants with other people for all the other meals. Yes, perhaps the mere fact of eating at 3-4 different restaurants would probably do this to anyone. But, beyond that all I can think of is that we both had water and the blackberry cobbler at Cracker Barrel. Of course, the other person we ate with was only nauseous and so maybe she just has a steel stomach (something normally attributed to me).

Anyway, why am I telling this story? Well, because of it I missed church and so who knows who taught the 10 year olds. Because of it I slept all day and was only awake when the head throbbing wouldn't stop. During those moments I read "The Soloist" courtesy of Harrison. Because of it I wasn't at work today. And, because of it I wrote my status in a family email and my mom wrote back saying that she felt like she was going to die the other night too and she had the same symptoms. Wow! Something must be going around because she is a nine hour drive from here.

Hopefully, all of us are just having a little bug and hopefully nobody actually dies from this, but it is curious that we all used those words to describe how we felt.

Sometimes these little moments make me want to get up, get better and start finishing all those things on my to-do list that I really do want to complete before I die. However, let's hope that it's not for another 60 years.

Secret Happiness becomes Blatant Exhaustion

Well, I admit, I went a bit overboard. I rode my bike about 1 mile yesterday and then figured I could take another ride today.

This is when you realize that you live in hilly neighborhoods! I decided to ride to the bike store to purchase a bike lock. After about two miles I was exhausted and luckily there was a Dick's Sporting Goods store nearby. I bought the lock in there and started back. I had to sit down at a park for about 30 minutes before getting on the bike to do the last mile.

After the six mile trek, I barely made it into my door and I fell down on the ground and just laid there. I almost fainted, felt dizzy and almost got sick. But, one minute on the floor and I was recovered.

Rules for "the wind, the road, and the freedom" in no particular order include:
1 - Wear a helmet
2 - Wear a backpack
3 - Roll up your right pant leg or wear shorts
4 - Bring two bottles of water
5 - Bring ID and medical card
6 - $40 cash for whatever
7 - Know your limits

I'm a far cry from college when I would ride my bike up in the foothills and the canyons of the Rockies everyday, but gotta start somewhere.

P.S. Later in the evening I did get sick - very sick. Not sure if it was from food, sun, biking or a combination of the above.