News from the Great Beyond

Everything That's On My Mind... Newbies and Warm Fuzzies Edition

Right off the bat, let me laugh at my last post when I declared that I'd short circuit the procrastination cycle... while I did procrastinate less on the planning process for my weekly Word blog post, and with my melatonin regimen resumed got back to a normal sleep pattern, astute readers will probably note that I managed not to write my post here at all last week. 

Well, I can't just go cold turkey on the procrastination thing, right?

Anyway, as a result today I have a two-for-one special on links to my Word shared blog contributions:

First up is from Sunday, 2/12, in which I compare and contrast the parting of the Red Sea and the Garden of Gesthemane scene in Matthew.  Ummm... yeah, you'll have to read it to get the picture.  It looks something like this, though:

Click here for Day #43 - Grand Gestures and Silent Suffering

Second is today's post, in which I discuss the consecration of the priesthood in Exodus, how married couples end up ignoring one another, self-righteous religious folk, and Jesus' scandalous behavior in the book of Mark.  I also use the dreaded term "paradigm shift".

Click here for Day #50 - The Letter of the Law

As mentioned here, I've gotten rather involved in playing online mafia.  By that, I do not mean anything like Mafia Wars on Facebook.  This is more of a game of interpreting others' behavior, as well as plotting and manipulation, and I've found it to be thoroughy entertaining.  Here's a flash tutorial on the basic concept, for those who haven't heard of it.

I just finished my first full game a few days ago, and it turns out I've got something of a natural aptitude, which... strangely enough, worked against me.  I made it clear at the outset of the game that I was very new at it, so as to keep expectations low and keep me from feeling utterly self-conscious if I flubbed up or didn't measure up to the standards of the more experienced players.  However, I apparently did so well at my analysis of the other players' actions that they quickly became suspicious that someone was coaching me on what to say... and that would mean I was mafia, if I was able to communicate outside the game thread with someone else giving me suggestions.

It made me laugh, because it was so utterly untrue, at least in one way.  I actually was part of the mafia team, but my teammates provided me next to no help whatsoever.  Two of my three teammates were killed during the first two day phases, and on the third day, there was a sudden rush of people calling for me to be lynched, because they just couldn't believe I was this good at the game as a newbie.

Well, they were right to lynch me, it was just the wrong reason. ;)

This game was themed, and as it was based on something I was not horribly familiar with (the X-men movies), I felt like I was missing out on some of the more subtle hints people were dropping about their characters.  One of the players in that game is set to moderate his own game soon, which will be themed around the TV show Firefly, which I've also never watched.  Lucky for me Amazon Prime members can watch Firefly on streaming video for free.

Anyway, I'm next up to substitute into a game in progress that's a bit more advanced in its setup, and promises to strain my brain in mutiple ways before it's through.

Speaking of newbies and brain strain (look, Bob, a segue!)...  Friday was my last day on the phones for 6+ weeks as I have been tapped yet again as the Subject Matter Expert (read: assistant to the trainer) in our next new hire class.  I've been trying not to rub salt in the wounds of my overworked and stressed-out coworkers, but it's hard not to be a bit jubilant.  I had such a great time working with the new hire class last September. 

I'll be back to working Monday-Friday 8:00am to 4:30pm, which gives me time to get up at a decent hour and hit the gym before I get ready for work.  Technically I could have been doing that for the last several weeks as well, but after catching the creeping crud that was going around the office, I got out of the habit of forcing myself to get up at oh-dark-thirty to exercise.  One change in routine is sufficient for me to commit to another change in routine.  Plus my Kindle has been missing me lately -- with as many "to be read" paperbacks as I have sitting around the house, I refuse to let myself use the e-reader unless I'm traveling or at the gym.

My blog posts here, with the schedule change, are most likely to happen on Saturdays or Sundays for the next couple of months.  I'm still trying to get in at least one a week here, while sticking to my weekly schedule at the Word blog.  Additional creative writing will eventually be worked into the schedule as the muse strikes.

Thanks for stopping by, leave a comment if you will.  Comments give me the warm fuzzies, and we could all use a few more warm fuzzies in our lives.

Everything That's On My Mind... Stress and Sleep Edition

As mentioned last week, the grocery store run to restock on melatonin didn't actually happen.  Regretfully, as it turns out, because by the end of the week, the short supply of sleep apparently started to catch up with me in strange ways.

There's the usual "don't want to get up in the morning" thing, which is hard enough to overcome for me on the best days, and the whole desperate need of coffee to kickstart the brain, which goes along with not being a morning person anyway... but apparently by Saturday, while I wasn't feeling particularly tired or cranky, I was completely stressed out and didn't even realize it.

Saturday afternoon, lunch time.  I wandered by the technical coach on duty's desk on my way out the door to pick up lunch, and decided to ask her for some advice on an escalated issue (read: multiple supervisor calls over the past couple of weeks) that I'd gotten stuck with.  My supervisor overheard the conversation and decided to ask me to give her the basics so she could help clarify things somewhat, as it was partially due to an error on the part of one of our representatives and partially due to the customer's mistaken assumption, and the customer was expecting quite an expensive resolution.  At one point, about 20 minutes after I paused to ask for a quick bit of advice, I realized that I was almost out of time for lunch, and my supervisor, bless her heart, asked me why on earth I was sitting at her desk talking about work on my lunch break instead of taking the time for myself like I ought to.

And yeah, for no apparent reason, I got tears in my eyes, and realized that I was completely overwhelmed. 

It took me nearly 10 minutes to get back to some semblance of control, and then I was ordered to go get lunch and take my full 30 minutes, then send my supervisor the particulars so she could follow up on it, and let it go for pity's sake.  Apparently I am sometimes a little too conscientious for my own good.

Truthfully I was still a little shaky during my lunch break, but I got through the rest of the afternoon without incident and sent my boss an obsessively long e-mail with the details of said escalated issue, at which she half-jokingly chided me for telling her too much information.  She's very much a TL;DR person.

Got home Saturday night after work, and set out to write my Sunday column for the Word shared blog.  And realized the stress was still getting to me, because I had a complete mental block.  What I really needed was a good night's sleep, but I couldn't let myself procrastinate my way out of that commitment, so I pushed through until I got an idea, ran with it, and subsequently collapsed.

Yeah, I realize I forgot to link to the post on Sunday.  It's not my most inspired column yet, but for those who are curious, here it is:

Day # 36 - God of My Father

Sunday I really wanted to sleep in, but was committed to working the church nursery.  Two-plus hours with three toddlers later, I was thoroughly drained.  I had three choices:  1) a Sunday afternoon nap, which might just throw off my sleep schedule further... 2) Coffee, which would perk me up enough to accomplish a few things I wanted to do, but of which I was wary based on last weekend's zero-sleep debacle.... or 3) Iced tea with lunch, then try to wind down for bed at a decent hour. 

I'd tried to swing by the grocery store for that much-procrastinated restock on melatonin but the Super Bowl pre-party shopping was absolutely insane, so I decided on option 3, which didn't so much work as planned.  I felt like a zombie most of the afternoon, got nothing accomplished, perked up a little toward evening, tried to go to bed but couldn't shut off my brain enough to sleep well, and ended up calling in first thing Monday morning to reschedule my overtime hours to Tuesday.

Yesterday I finally said "enough is enough" and went to the store to restock on melatonin, as well as a few other things I needed.  Yeah, I've got enough to last me over a year now.  I know some friends and family who've tried it and didn't really think it did much for them, but apparently I can't do without it right now.  I popped one of those babies last night 'round 8:30 PM, and by 9:30 I was sound asleep.

And woke up at 2:20 AM feeling extremely refreshed.  Too good for being the middle-of-the-damn-night, to be honest, and I knew I'd be miserable without more sleep by the time I needed to be at work at 7, so I tossed and turned a while and managed to drop off again...  AND... overslept, missing my rescheduled overtime shift.  Err, whoops!

Meh.  I'm sure to get hassled a bit for not doing my overtime two weeks in a row, but after my emotional stress-ball scene on Saturday, I think my supervisor will probably be inclined to cut me some slack. 

Today, I'm feeling good.  I feel really rested for the first time in a couple of weeks.  I'm short-circuiting the procrastination cycle on the shared blog by doing my reading today and starting the idea-drafting process.  And I'm going to enjoy this last off-day before my 40 hour work week starts again tomorrow.

New Word Blog Post: Jacob and Two Women

It's up, it's up, I've just been a bit slow today due to my lack of sleep last night. Have I mentioned I'm a world champion-level procrastinator?  I waited until Saturday night to write my post for the Word shared blog, and then I got a last-minute invitation to dinner with a good friend, which of course had to wait until after I got off work at 7:30 PM... and after all that, when I finally got my brain in gear enough to write last night, it was hard slipping it back into neutral and making myself go to bed.

But I was up for church this morning, our Youth worship team did the music, and we had one of my favorite guest speakers ever (Rabbi Jack from Jewish Voice Ministries International), so I skipped my coffee and got there.  Which of course means that I'm just now getting my link up on my blog, although the Word blog has been up for hours and hours.

So here you go - today's post, with a hat tip to the late, great Rich Mullins:

Day # 29 - Jacob and Two Women

And as a bonus, here's the song that was running through my head:

New Word Blog Post: Walking on Water

I'm being "green" and recycling today - isn't green a lovely color?

Actually, when I was looking this past week at my topic scriptures for today's post on the Word shared blog, I realized that I could not possibly improve on what I'd already written about Matthew 14:22-36, the passage where Jesus, followed by Peter, walk on the water. 

The post I made in March of 2004 was pulled from the notes I took during a sermon by a guest speaker who really impressed me, and I still can't think of anything better to say about that passage, so I plagiarized from myself to share for today's devotional.

Thankfully for the "lazy writer" syndrome, I don't believe I have any other posts in my archives that would work for the purpose... or at least, if I do, I don't remember them, which means I won't go poking around through the archives for them when the time comes. I can't promise I won't find a poem or two (or a related story post) to link there when relevant, but that's a different story altogether. ;-)

So for those who haven't already poked around in my "Best of Beyond" sidebar featured posts, or for those who want to join a fresh discussion with the Word blog readers...

Click here for Day #22 - Walking on Water

New Word Blog Post: It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

My weekly post is up at the Word shared blog, this week entitled "It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To"... 

Click through to read my thoughts about Job 17-19, including how much of Job's speeches read like a giant pity party... one of Job's clueless friends unwittingly provides an excellent customer service smackdown... and as a bonus, if the title doesn't get a song stuck in your head, the ending almost certainly will.

Take your pick of one of these variations:

 

Have a great week! More to come!

Everything That's On My Mind... Hot Tea and Honey Edition

As the great Charlie Peacock once sang, "Oh, I've got to say everything that's on my mind / I cannot keep it bottled up inside of me..."

I'm sitting here with a mug of chai laced with honey, fighting the inevitable case of winter bronchitis.  A ten hour day of sitting near sick coworkers, and voila!  The cough is developing.  Mucinex and Theraflu got me through last winter, and I suspect I may need to make a restocking run over the weekend.

Weekend.  Normally, this is Sunday, Monday and Tuesday for me, working my 4/10's shift.  Alas, right now is our busiest time of year, and mandatory overtime is in effect to the tune of 5 hours a week.  As I cannot fathom the thought of voluntarily working over 10 hours in a day (tried it once, and eleven was just. too. much.), this means one of my normally brain-dead refuse-to-leave-the-house days is marred by a trip to the office to put in something resembling an effort to be friendly and helpful.  Bah humbug.  This coming week, I'll be working 8 hours on the official company holiday Monday, then 10 hours Wednesday, 6 hours Thursday, 10 hours Friday and Saturday. 

Oh wait, that only adds up to 44.  I'm missing an overtime hour.

OH WELL!

Work is... work. There are days that, no matter what my friend and coworker believes, I struggle to make it sound like I enjoy the job.  I was a theatre minor in college, you know.  I do have a bit of a talent for acting. 

Then there are days when I actually do kind of like it -- believe it or not, these are not always the easy days where everyone is nice.  Sometimes the really difficult calls are an opportunity to prove just how awesome you really are.  I wear my Superman t-shirt, and leap tall customer service hurdles in a single bound.

Take this past Wednesday for instance.

One thing I've learned working for a mail order pharmacy is that insurance plans that require mail order for maintenance medications tend to make people angry.  Mail order required plan, plus a procrastinating customer, stir in a little attitude and sense of entitlement (and a nagging wife in the background who must add her two cents), and you've got a recipe for a difficult call.

Add in a fresh-out-of-training customer service rep's oversight, a doctor's office who does not respond promptly to pharmacy requests, a past due balance for an order the customer denies ever receiving from five months ago (despite UPS package tracking showing it was signed for), and life-or-death liver transplant meds, and you've just enabled EXPERT MODE.

One split order, two mail order overrides, a courtesy credit for the allegedly lost package, a coaching request e-mail for the newbie, and a heck of a lot of apologies later, I handed off the reasonably mollified caller to our specialty pharmacy to deal with an order they were trying to finish up, took a deep breath, and with a huge grin announced to my coworkers around me, "I WIN."

You've gotta take your victories where you can find them.

I've found myself searching for those little victories quite a lot lately, especially where writing is concerned.  After my last posts here on NftGB and on the Word shared blog, I spent an enormous chunk of the day on Sunday and Monday obsessively checking site stats and waiting for comments.

In between refreshes on my Typepad and WordPress dashboards, I did a little playing around with graphics for forum signatures on one of the sites I frequent, and after uploading a couple of new sig prospects for people to review, I spent an inordinate amount of time watching for replies and staring at the "times viewed" counter. It was really quite pathetic.

So I came up with a new banner and color scheme for this site, yet again, and am trying to force myself to wait until February to enable it, just on principle.

Now that she's blogging, I wonder if my mom is experiencing this deep and abiding need for feedback.  I'll say one thing, her second-ever post was a doozy!  She appears to have slipped right into the conversational voice of a good blogger and storyteller.  And what a story.

When my dad was diagnosed with his brain tumor, I was 1500 miles away, and deeply embroiled in the hectic preparations for my wedding that was coming up in six weeks.  I heard and saw only bits and pieces of what he and Mom were going through, and comprehended even less.  It's hard to really fathom that kind of suffering and grief until you've walked through your own... but even if you haven't, Mom's post will inspire you.  Give it a read, see for yourself.

New Word Blog Post: Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing.

Just a note to let you know that my second post of the year is up at the Christ Community Church blog, and it's all about the trust issues.  That, and a healthy dose of goofiness inspired by imagining a modern vernacular conversation with Abraham and Abimelech.  You'll just have to see it to understand:

Click here to check out my post on Word.

Speaking of the church blog, I just have to spend a minute here and brag on my mom.  This past Thursday was her first ever venture into blogging, and she did a great job.  Check out her thoughts on God's covenant with Abram from Genesis 15, and more, here.

I got a sneak peek tonight at her post for this week, and it's just awesome.  I think she's getting used to this writing thing... I'll be sure to link her day #12 reflections when they're posted, because you won't want to miss this one.

Stay tuned for at least one more post here this week.  Meanwhile, play nice, and don't put your feet on the furniture.  I'll be watching!

New Word Blog Post: God of the Beginning

Happy New Year to my friends, family, and random strangers who run across me in a Google search for complaints about being non-confrontational or having a high forehead!  My introductory post is up at Word, the shared blog for Christ Community Church's Bible-in-a-Year readthrough. 

I'm one of seven bloggers - including my mom - who will be posting weekly.  My day is Sunday, which I suspect was intentional to force me to be the first to publish.  For some reason, having my ramblings out here in public for the last eight years or so makes me appear to be a veteran blogger, and they thought I'd have an idea of what to do so everyone else could follow my lead.  Hah! 

Well, I've known how to ramble un-self-consciously for an audience since my college improv comedy days, and was trained by our "To Tell a Joke" improv game that it's sometimes necessary to be the first to volunteer to jump out there and say something - anything, no matter how stupid - to give others time to come up with something better.  The director would ask the audience for suggestions (a profession) we would use within a preset joke framework (ten thousand "whatevers" walk into a bar...) and take turns coming up with impromptu puns based on the audience feedback.  Usually, the volunteer "sacrifice" would step out immediately and speak slowly, at length, making very little sense, and face the befuddlement and groans of the audience with good grace while the other troupe members racked up idea after idea for actual "good" jokes. 

Yeah, they might say I'm a "hard act to follow", but in my mind, I'm the "sacrifice" to give them time to come up with a better plan.

I debated for a while whether to cross-post my submissions in their entirety here on NFTGB, but ultimately decided I'd rather direct the traffic, and the comments, to that site - the more the merrier over there for the readthrough.  So, head on over to Word for my thoughts on Genesis chapters 1-3 and Matthew chapter 1... and on behalf of the blog-reading community, get some discussion started while you're at it.

Click here for "God of the Beginning"

Musings... on Writing Discipline

Oh hi, it's me again... remember, the one who promised back in August that I'd be posting more often?  Yeah, we can see how well that worked.  Promises, promises, eh?

I will say that despite not posting about it, I did work on transcribing more of my poetry to the blog site - I finished all the more recent poetry collection (although I still have to work on getting the songs typed up, and finish the original, older collection while I'm at it).  And then... life happened.

I had a wedding to attend in early September, with bridesmaid duties... and right before I left, I was presented with a can't-miss opportunity at work to assist with our next new hire training class and coordinate their on-the-job training.  This caused my work schedule to shift for 7 weeks, starting the day after I returned from my week long bridesmaid-vacation, and suddenly I no longer had my 3-day weekends to designate a spare day for creativity.  And once I'm out of the habit, it's deadly hard to get me back into it, so going back to my usual work schedule in November, nothing got written.  Discipline has never been my strong suit, apparently.

I have, however, been reading a lot about writing - especially Twitter updates and blog posts from one of my favorite authors, James Scott Bell.  And reading about writing makes me want to write more, I just need something to force me to get started, and keep going.

Enter my mom's church, and their 2012 theme, "Do the Word".  As part of their "Bible-in-a-year" reading plan, there will be daily devotionals on their new church blog, and yours truly has been designated as one of the 7 regular blog contributors.   In fact, I will be writing every Sunday.  Hey wait a minute, New Year's Day is a Sunday this year... You mean I'll be the first one up?  No pressure there, folks!

As a side note, my mom will be one of the featured bloggers as well.  She would never describe herself as such, but my mother is a scholar - I expect some fantastic insights from her, especially regarding the Old Testament readings.

In any event, I'll link to the weekly "Do the Word" posts here as well as on Facebook.  Having a regular audience depending on me for the church blog will keep me accountable to write at least that on a weekly basis, and I refuse to promise too much for additional writing (especially coinsidering how busy work is likely to get after the new year), but once I'm in the groove, you may see more.

This is how I know God likes me. (UPDATED)

So yeah.  Since the last time I posted, I ran out of savings and found a job just in the nick of time (I had $200 that had to last me for 4 weeks before my mom and my grandparents pitched in to make sure I had enough to make it through to my first paycheck)....

After years of having two decent incomes, and then one more-than-sufficient income, and then a big chunk of life insurance to draw from (one year of Hubby-head's salary lasted me almost two years), I'm suddenly having to rearrange my budget around weekly paychecks.   I'd had all my bills scheduled or set to auto-pay from my online bill pay, and rarely needed to worry with changing the payment dates - a few bills I'd have to go in and schedule when to pay them, but most things happened like clockwork without me having to think about it.  It's been... an adjustment.

I'm not quite adjusted yet.  I managed to forget to reschedule my end of the month/first of the month bills to separate weeks, and when I went in yesterday to check on how I was going to arrange my payments with next week's short paycheck (*muttering about "holidays" as a temp*), I realized that I not only had overdrawn my account, I'd managed to have so many things hit at the wrong time that between the actual payments and the overdraft fees, my entire next paycheck is going to be sucked up by the negative balance.  Yay.

So yeah.  I had $4 and some change to live on for the next couple of weeks - thankfully one of those things that pushed my bank balance into the red was buying two weeks worth of groceries, but I did have a few necessities to pick up at the store and I wasn't looking forward to having to bum a ride from one of my coworkers if the gas tank ran too low... that kind of thing.

And then... I remembered the change jar.  Hubby-head's change jar, which was actually a 40 oz container he'd kept from a bulk package of Smart & Final roasted peanuts years ago.  Every night he'd empty his pockets on top of his armoire, or next to the computer, and in the morning he'd pick up the wallet, keys and dollar bills, and leave behind whatever change he'd picked up throughout the day.  We had piles of change all over the place, so I started collecting it on a regular basis and dumping it into the change jar.

Now and then when the budget was tight, I'd dig into the jar and pull out a few dollars worth of quarters to buy lunch or a couple of urgent grocery items.  Most of what was left in the jar looked like pennies and nickels, but I decided to take the jar with me to the grocery store and dump it into one of those Coinstar machines to see what I ended up with. 

Apparently I had over $110.00 in change sitting in my living room - who knew?  After the Coinstar counting fee and buying the stuff I went to the grocery store to get in the first place, I've got $85.00 left to cover me for the next two weeks.  More than enough... and man, do I feel blessed.

So yeah.  God likes me.

UPDATED 7/16!

I take that back... THIS is how I know God likes me! 

Sunday morning I received a text message from one of our outreach coordinators asking if I could stop on the way to church and pick up a case of bottled water to stock up for planned outreach activities... Of course, my phone is set to vibrate and I didn't even hear the text come in, so I picked it up at the tail end of service when I was checking the time on my phone.

After church, I mentioned to him that I just got the message, but I wouldn't have been able to afford to spend money on that for a couple of weeks anyway due to the aforementioned bank balance issues. 

As it turns out, his wife works for my bank.  And as it turns out, I got a text from him later that day asking me to message his wife with my account number, and she could reverse out the overdraft fees for me.

She ended up removing enough fees from my account that I'm back in the black - and yes, I did reschedule my payments appropriately to make sure that didn't happen again.

See?  God likes me.