Playing the Big Money Game

Playing the Big Money Game

Today while having my yearly evalation with my employer, he commented several times "Are you in or are you out". I believe the question was more rhetorical, but it made me think about all the times we make decisions. 

Some decisions are made laborious and some decisions are made on the spur of the moment. Some won't really matter ten minutes, two day, or even ten years from now. What am I going to eat for dinner? Should I put my resume out and start looking for that next rung on the corporate ladder?  My next car is going to be a ......(fill in the blank).

Other decisions will, and can, have life changing effects on us.  Some of those changes can be almost immediant. Do I go take that final? Do I go on a second date with him when I don't find myself attracted to him? Is this the place I want to live at this point in my life? Some of these decisions can be critical....Do I quit my job to do what I really want to do. Do I sacrifice and do without to achieve a dream of ...(again, fill in the blank)?

Sometimes it is fun to spend the day doing fun, uncomplicated things. It allows us to smile, enjoy, and not take life so seriously. Something my spouse tends to lecture me about. I am trying to remember that everything isn't life and death.

When I use to work in plumbing showrooms several years ago, I would get so frustrated with these homeowners that would come in and need to select faucets, tubs, sinks, and toilets for SEVERAL bathrooms. Oh, and don't forget the kitchen and the 5 minibars throughout the house...OK, that was kind of tongue in cheek :). After working through a couple of bathrooms, I would find myself day dreaming as the homeowner (usually a woman) would stress completely out about what lavatory faucet to put in bathroom C and what the finish would be. Sometimes just this simple selection could take hour upon hour. 

I would fantasize saying to her, with a smile of course,"You aren't curing cancer, and you aren't burying a child....you are selecting a FAUCET! It can be changed later if you grow tired of it". The truth is that rarely when an entire home is finished, does someone come in and say "You know, I still hate that faucet in Bathroom C". It just doesn't happen because the homeowner is looking at the big picture!

I wish I was really good at following my own advice. I fail on a regular basis to LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE. I can't see past my personal problems to see that they don't matter. It isn't life and death. And to quote Dr. Phil, I tell those around me, both family and coworkers, "Do I want to always be right, or do I want to be happy?" 

So I guess where I'm going with all of this is, did you guess wrong and lose a car on a game show? Not life changing. It was fun. It is a memory made and something you can share with your kids, grand kids and great grand kids (as long as the C.D. player isn't discontinued) OR Did you take a chance, give up a sure thing job to do what you love?

Chill out. I know it seems bad today....been there, done that. But in the grand scheme of things, will you even remember this two days or ten years from now. And have the common sense to KNOW what is a game changer and what is a time changer.

Want to see my Walk of Fame or should that be Shame? I act goofy and am shaking and on the verge of crying like a baby - particularly when I spun the Big Wheel for the Showcase Showdown, but it wasn't life changing. Winning a little bit of prize money just fun...good old fun.

Here's the link to one of my NON life important moments when I chose the wrong number....No need to wish about what might have been. It was a game, lots of people dream of being in my shoes for those few moments of fame.

Enjoy and don't beat me up to bad with the comments....I KNOW what a goofball I look like. Sorry to those in Ft. Worth that I embarrassed with my over the top accent :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2QrzcXvGzw&feature=BFa&list=FLuHqmws2_aUyYcwq3x4HbKw

The Price Is Right Taped October 29, 2008 in Los Angelos 

Good Night and Hugs to You All!

The View From Where I Am

The View From Where I Am

I just find this picture fascinating. I keep looking at it and thinking "That is how i feel!" I am always looking at the rear end of most situations. I am following behind, playing clean up, stepping in the poop left by others from their messes. Yes, I feel responsible to clean up the mess. 

I know in my head that this feeling of being responsible for everyone around me is a self imposed responsibility. No one really puts it on me......well, OK, some in my life Do put it on me but that is only because I have taken the responsible and always met their expectations that I will/can fix all the wrongs in their world. Again, this is because I have taken this role in the lives of those around me. 

Without question the biggest offenders are my kids. The problem is I haven't allowed them to grow up and live with their own personal choices. I just want to fix it all and pretend that all the world is perfect....at least I want those on the outside to THINK that my world is perfect. 

The world became aware just how imprefect my life was - as if they didn't already know - when my oldest son died in 2008. You see, he had an addiction. The problem with drug addiction isn't just with the addict. It permeates every person that the addict comes into contact with. It creeps in and hurts. Those around the addict are just collateral damage. 

There are always those that say "Well, if it were my child.....". The problem is, they AREN'T your child. They are my child. I love them. I want to make all the wrongs right. I want to make up for all the bad choices I made while trying the best I knew how. I want their life's to be immune to all the hurt.

The problem is, I can not make it all perfect and better. Anymore than I can make my own life perfect and better. I have learned that others fake it, probably better than I "fake" it. Why can't it just be a fact that we all admit our faults and help each other. Share our pains and hurts and know that someone won't wait until I am gone to gossip and whisper about how "messed up my family is". 

I know that is why I waste so much time watching The Real Housewives of ???? (fill in the blank) It's because I can watch these women's train wrecks in their own lives and it makes mine not see so bad (OR public). 

Tomorrow, my goal is to NOT feel like I am looking at the ass end of any situation. I will not take on the unrealistic responsibility of making everyone else lives around me seem or feel perfect. I am going to take care of myself, my husband that I love so much and know that this is just the best I can do and let the cards fall where they may.

Look at the picture, do you feel like this is your view of life?

The Comfort of a Quilt

I remember the last time my mother was in my home. It isn't so much the fact that she was there, but that for the first time in my life, I could remember her having an emotional attachment to things from her past. She had left my dad by this time and had a large box of things she wanted me to have.

She appeared at my door unexpectedly that day and dropped this large box off and was gone as quickly as she had shown up. I left the box sitting there for days. Afraid of what she might find important and sentimental. 

I opened the box after days and was shocked at the contents. Things I would have NEVER thought would be worthy of keeping. She had gotten rid of my Barbie dolls prior to our move from Ephrata, Washington to Little Rock Arkansas back in 1966. Having them in the car would just be to much trouble. She even cut all my hair off and gave me a "pixie" cut because caring for my hair was to much of a problem. 

In the box? Grandmother Williams purse. Her Sunday shoes. Her wedding ring almost worn completely thin. But the most prized items in that box were Grandmother Williams Bible and a quilt from 1937. It had been hand made by the women of my mothers family. Signatures had been hand embroidered and dated. The quilt was in like new condition. The flour sacks used to back this quilt still had the flour compan names clearly visible. I held that quilt and looked at it. Amazed it hadn't been disposed of. Surely it should have gone the way of my Barbie Dolls and hair. The names on the quilt were names I recognized from family discussion when I was younger. How had this survived my mother's lack of attachment to anything. ANYTHING including her husband and children. 

It would be years later before I had a conversation with my cousin asking her about some of the people from that side of my family. She had grown up in Oklahoma. Close to my grandparents. I had grown up a military child and we lived so far away that I hardly knew my grandparents. My cousin started sharing about our family. The people and the interesting history that every family has. Although, i don't know if every family has moonshine runners, killers, jealous husbands, and a famous Okie from Muskogee. That's right! I found out from discussion with my cousin about the names on the quilt that my mother is first cousins with THAT Okie from Muskogee. 

Eighteen years later my mother would be in my home again. She came, along with her husband, to my home to celebrate the marriage of my youngest child.....my only daughter. I ask mother about her first cousin and why she had never told us that she was related to Merle. Her answer astounded me and tells me so much about the insecurities I grew up with. She was in fact first cousins with the famous singer, but he was from the "trashy" side of the family. Family that she/we didn't want anyone to know we were kin to. Don't talk about it. It's an embarrassment. 

Really? Ok, NOW I know why I was never good enough. It was NOT that I didn't become a nurse, that I had married at sixteen - forget the fact that I am still married to the same man 36 years later, or that I wasn't thin enough. It was that she had lived her life to a standard that no one could achieve. It wasn't that "I" wasn't good enough.....NO ONE was good enough. 

I got the quilt out after she leaves and hold it. Smell it. Touch the embroidery that was done so lovingly by my family, MY KIN some 65 years ago. Some how that quilt survived. It was good enough that she - someone with no sentimental bones in her body - kept. For me. 

So, I now realize that those ladies, those precious family members were really good enough. The love they put in to that quilt was saved.  The love may have skipped a generation in my mother, but it landed on me and I will pass it down to my daughter.  Our family love won't skip a generation again if I can help it.