Work

I love to work. I know, not a popular concept. I almost always have had jobs that I liked and some that I loved. I come from generations of people with strong work ethics. My Grandfather was an entrepreneur. He started his own gas station (ESSO) and general store in West Virginia. He expanded to appliances and then TVs. My father is a Baptist Minister. Always employed by a church, but essentially on his own to get the job done. My mother always worked. I really did not know that women stayed home after they got married!
 I wanted always to be a nurse.  It was never a decision, it just was. I went straight to nursing school after high school. I trained for CCU because I figured I could travel more if I had a specialty. It worked, I got a job anywhere I went without a problem. I think it was a wonderful way to learn how to deal with people and problems. It gave me a wonderful basis for being in a business that deals with the public.
I started to realize when I was 21 that I was a business looking for a place to happen. I sold everything to my friends. I sold memberships in  a record club so I could get free cassettes. I wrote a cookbook, put it together myself and sold out twice. I made costume jewelry and sold it. I crocheted hats and afghans.  I sold jojoba oil that I bottled myself.... you get the picture. 
I took accounting classes. I knew I could succeed in something.
 Then, I met Robert. The rest is history. He has the talent, I love business. A match made in heaven in so many ways. We  ate, slept, and breathed business. It has been our life for over 30 years. I am constantly amazed at how much I like to work and how well we work together. We have always been willing to "hold hands and jump off a cliff"!
We are both workaholics. We have tried very hard not to be consumed by it. Our children started working in the store when they were 3 and 5. They continued as long as they lived at home. They have not always loved the fact that they were born to workaholic parents, but they both are hard workers (high praise, in our family).
Don't get me wrong, I love to play, up to a point. I can't just do nothing, unless I am "trapped" on a cruise ship and even then, I find ways to keep busy.
I understood, early in life, that I had no artistic talents. I knew I was a creative problem solver and that I loved math, especially algebra. I think I would have succeeded earlier in business if women had been more liberated. My mother was a secretary all of her life. That often meant doing the boss's work for no recognition and a lot less pay. Women were not encouraged to own a business or even to manage one.  I watched her and learned. She wore pants to work! She was liberated for her day and is still very liberal in her approach to life.
 I don't have any kind of clear understanding of people who don't work. We have extended family members and friends who have always found ways not to work. It is a real test for me not to judge them harshly. On the other hand., I am a workaholic.........
 All of my jobs have had difficult days, but on the whole, I am really happy with what I do. If I had to choose again, I would have gone into business earlier.
Why am I writing about work? Today was a really busy day. It was exhilarating. I thought today how much I love my job and how blessed I am to have it.
 Of course, all of this is probably because I am the boss and it is all about CONTROL!!!

Health Insurance

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, I opened my mail from the day before. Yes, life is that busy! I had a letter from my health insurance company telling me that I was canceled. It seems they have decided "in the uncertain regulatory future" to cancel all individual policies. They did give me an option to use another company that will charge me more money for less coverage.
Insurance. I can hardly speak to the evil of it. I have had health insurance all of my life. I have paid more than  my life savings into it and I have received hardly anything in return. I had to pay a lot for each of my children.(They were worth it!) I had to pay a lot for the other two hospitalizations I had. Each time I had health insurance. High deductible, doesn't pay for much at all, health insurance. I hate the "what if" game. Insurance makes you an unwilling participant in that game.
In a few years, I will be on Medicare. It seems to me that Medicare is the game where the doctors and the health institutions do everything that they can do to take the government's (my) money. I have seen unnecessary tests ordered and oh too many specialists used, on my Medicare using friends and family. I am dreading being in that system. Again, no choice. You must have health insurance and you must go to Medicare.
By God's grace, good genes, and paying attention, I am healthy. I know that could change in a heartbeat. This fear is what the insurance companies are counting on.
Again, fear and control.

Sin

I just returned from 4 days in "Sin City". I sinned. At least that is what some think. I was raised in a very strict religious household. Sin was to be avoided at all cost.  It was a sin to smoke, to drink, to dance, to play cards, to gamble, and to even to think about sex! We prayed for forgiveness. We knew our sins were "washed in the blood". When you are that restricted, sin is sure inviting. I left home at 17 and I sure was looking forward to some sin. I thought I could survive the guilt! Sure enough, I was right.
When I was 28, in my search for my soul, I got involved in a "cult religion". I stopped sinning. I was pretty high and mighty. Stopped smoking, drinking, drugging, eating meat and sugar, and got married. (Again.) I had children. I spent all the years that they lived at home, mostly, on that straight and narrow path. I did eat some fish and chicken.
Then, they left. My doctor said drink red wine. I said okay. I started using sugar on a regular basis. I ate a little beef. I realized that my path is moderation in all things. I still love the "teachings" of that religion, but I can no longer be rigid. I don't want to judge anyone. I am a searcher. I want to live life fully, without being too far left or right. I want to walk the "middle way of the Buddha". I want to laugh and to love.
At my age, a little sinning goes a long way. It is good to be back in my boring routine.

Tiger Mom

I am a tiger mom. I did not know that term when I was raising my children. I called myself a lioness. Tonight, someone hurt one of my children's feelings. I want to do bodily harm to that person. I guess that protectiveness never goes away. I pushed my children hard. They pushed back. They both finished college. One finished graduate school. They are productive people. They are happily married. I know that I have to let go. I have let go a lot, but DON'T HURT MY KID!!! I guess that will never go away.

Obligation and Resentment

Life is full of obligations. Most of my obligations are self imposed. There is the obligation of being self employed. The obligation of having employees. The obligation of children. I chose all of these obligations. The obligations that I did not choose, but feel I must honor, are the most challenging ones in my life. The challenge is how to balance doing the right thing, with love, and not resenting having to do it. It is easier if the job comes with kudos. Most of the time, doing the right thing comes with silence. I have said for years that it is just "stars in my crown" when I do something unrecognized. I struggle all the time with a certain level of resentment. I guess I am back to that old evil, control.
I resent it when I am doing whatever it is I feel obliged to do and it interferes with what I want to do.  I know that I should just go for the "love and cheerful heart" thing, but when I least expect it, in comes the resentment. I try to be objective and balance my feelings. I often, do the right thing with an even (flat?) attitude and a fake smile. I have been told all of my life, if you want to have a good attitude, fake it, and the attitude will come. That is sometimes true for me. Abraham Lincoln said "You are only as happy as you make up your mind to be." It is my daily goal to make up my mind to be positive and cheerful. 
I have taken care of people all of my life. First as a nurse, then as a sales clerk. It is the same thing. Everyone has an obligation to be nice. You see a need, you try to take care of it. I guess the resentment comes, when nothing works. Since I cannot control anything except my attitude, it is up to me to make the adjustment. In rare situations, I just decide that I am done. The obligations that are "duty" are exempt from that. How do I  take care of whatever needs to be done and keep a good attitude about it?
I know people that are angels. They get up everyday and take care of a loved one and don't complain. I am not one of them. I feel bitchy and prickly when that resentment rises. It does me no good. The obligations do not go away.
Are these the "tests" that we are told we will have? Will I be one of those "duty obligations" for someone someday?
I will try my very hardest not to be, but if life has other ideas, I know that I will remember the battle  I have had with resentment. I know that I will be better.

Cruelty

I have a really hard time dealing with any and all kinds of cruelty. We had a couple of dogs at the end of our street for years that were always loose and outside in every kind of weather. They are both gone, now. First the brown one disappeared, now the black and white one is gone. I assume they are dead. I used to call animal control, just so they would get picked up and taken somewhere safe, where they were fed and warm. Now the house across the street from them have two dogs that they never let inside and have no dog house or shelter for them outside. At least the yard is fenced. I have not decided how to deal with that yet.
 I was raised with abuse. I have never decided if it was purposeful or cruel on the part of the abuser,  ( or a little of both) but it was cruel, none the less. I put off having children until I was in my 30's. I did not think I would ever have children. I knew, on some level, that there was a possibility that I would be a bad mother. When I was 29, I decided to confront my abuse issues. It took a lot of years, and I think it will never be totally done, but I did learn that I did not have to be an abusive person. (How much of abuse is just about control? Lack of Control?) It was sometimes challenging to stop the cycle, but I did not abuse my children.
 The side effect of being abused is the difficulty of confrontation. I am so much better at it, than I was. I am now able to confront anyone, but I am so shaky inside while I am doing it. Dealing with the cruel dog owners on the corner is going to be a planned confrontation. That is difficult, but not as hard as unplanned confrontation.
When I see people being cruel to their children, I watch carefully to make sure it is not just discipline. If it is over the top, I say something. That is a hard, but necessary thing. When I was in nursing, I had a terrible time working in pediatrics. When children or animals are in pain, I am a basket case. I am sure this is a result of my childhood ordeals. It is amazing to me that my son can work with stray animals. (He always loved all animals!)
  I often think I should volunteer in some organization that helps and rescues children. I am afraid of involvement in an organized way, because it might peel away another layer of  my psychology that I have to deal with. I have taken in a lot of kids over the years. Some for a very short amount of time, and some much longer. I feel that I helped rescue them in some way.
 I know that what does not kill you makes you stronger or crazy. I feel that it has made me very strong and only a little crazy.

Glasses

Today I got another pair of glasses. I do this on a regular basis. It is always a challenge. It is incredibly expensive.
I have worn glasses since I was 10 years old. I was never blind, just nearsighted enough to need them for distance. I broke and lost my share of many pairs of ugly glasses when I was a kid!
When I was 16, I decided I just had to have contact lenses. My father said no. I waited until I was a student nurse and convinced the eye clinic at the county hospital to fit me with a pair of hard lenses. I loved them, in spite of the pain and hassle. I still had to have back up glasses. In my mid thirties, I need bifocals. More glasses. I used a contact lens system. (soft ones, by then) called mono vision. A close up lens in one eye and a distance lens in the other. In my forties, I was told that I needed trifocals. More glasses. No more contact lenses.
I still break my glasses on a regular basis. My husband has soldered more frames that I can remember.

Ugly glasses. I broke these on purpose!

My first pair of wire frames. These backed up contacts for years.

Fashion glasses. They stick out too far.

 The biggest challenge with glasses is picking out the frames. I have tried being stylish. It is hard to pick out a frame that you will wear, most of your waking hours, for at least a year. When I got a little more money, I would buy 2 pair of glasses, so I would not only have the back up pair, I would have choice. I still often ended up with at least 1, if not 2 pair of glasses that I did not really like.
Now, in my sixties, I have decided "fashion be damned". I will only wear the rimless or half rim "granny glasses" with the trifocal lines, that I truly love.

Control 2

I love logic. I love computers. I dislike control oriented programmers! I have spent 4 days installing a new server at the store. The installation went easy until it came to the tag printer. For many years we have shared the tag printer among 4 computers. Now, the jewelry software people want to sell me a printer for each computer and have programmed the software to no longer share. I hired my brother to do a work around, but so far it has failed to workaround the software. (We did find a mechanical work around.)  The programmers tell me that it is for my own good. They tell me that if each computer has it own printer I will waste less tags. (Seriously!!) They also tell me that the fact that they just added ads to my jewelry software homepage is customer service. I think it is control. Does everything in life come down to control? Why can't I decide how many tag printers I need? Why can't I decide to opt out of homepage ads? Is the motto of control "It's for your own good"? What is "my own good"? Is it a way to service your need for control? How does the logic of computing stand up against the emotional needs of the programmer for control?
I see this a lot in computing. Steve Jobs could not give up control of anything, so the Ipad does not have the "flash" software. Does the phrase, that software is intuitive, mean that the programmer tried to be less controlling of the user?
Everyday, I think of control. Am I trying to control the urge to control? If I use logic, where do I lose emotion?
If I become less emotional and more logical, in order to be less controlling, do I lose my emotional ability to love fully?
I was told many years ago to "Let Go Let God". Does that mean letting go of logic? emotion?
I am letting go of the computer issues. I will use the software with logic and less emotion.
It is what it is.