Golden Chain

I am a link in Amida Buddha's golden chain of love that stretches around the world. I will try to keep my link bright and strong. I will try to be kind and gentle to every living thing and protect all who are weaker than myself. I will try to think pure and beautiful thoughts, to say pure and beautiful words, and to do pure and beautiful deeds, knowing that what I do now depends my happiness and misery. May every link in Amida Buddha's golden chain of love be bright and strong and may we all attain perfect peace.

The last band/orchestra concert . . . .

One of the many, many, many things we accomplished last week . . . .
The last band/orchestra concert of the year . . .

I wonder if Little will want to start band.  He could, beginning next year . . . . .

On a sidenote . . . . I did capture one great photo of Middle with a few of her friends.  She, of course is the Fun-Sized one with the clarinet in the grey dress.

Middle . . is a badass.

Checklist . . . .

'Tis that time of the year. 

Last Elementary school band concert for this year.  Check. 

5th grade baseball game field trip.  Check.

5th grade state float.  Check. 

3rd grade mammal project.  Check.  Diorama. Check.  Paper. Check.  Prezi.   Check.

Middle won the science fair at school.  So, project done.  Corrections made.  Regional Science Fair. Check. 

Big's group placed third at regional history fair.  So, Berlin Wall project done.  Corrections made.   Day trip to the state capital. State History Fair.  Check.

Oh, I should rewind further. 

Kindergarten registration.  Check.

Kindergarten testing.  Check.  

Blue forms for teacher placement.   Check. 

Email to Middle school principal and counselor re: Middle's classes & schedule.  Check.

State Gymnastics.  Check.  Pictures later.  My kid did awesome.  At the last meet of the season, she stuck her series on beam.  I was overjoyed.  She's a rock star. 

Club volleyball done.  Check.

Middle school volleyball.  Big made the A-squad.  Hooray.  The district classic tournament is this weekend.  Almost check. 

Have I mentioned in the last several months that I've been absolutely buried with work.  Buried.  Alive.  I haven't worked this hard at this business since it was born a decade ago.   It really is like a sixth child.  

I'm too disjointed and in too much survival-slash-day-to-day mode to think past that.  So that's all I have, along with a personal resolution to blog more.   It feels good to blog.  

Hey, someone shot a marshmallow up in the iron thingy.  I wonder how long that's been there. 

I like these jeans.

I'm back.

I'm back.
With a small goal.
One tiny post.  I'd like to say everyday, but feel like that might be unattainable.

For today . . . . we are under blizzard conditions and the snow is beautiful.  Seriously.  Beautiful.  It's big, fat, wet, fluffy flakes and the air smells wonderful.  I love it.  I love snow.

December 2012

This is her routine in December 2012 . . . . just released to go back after the back fracture, so she still was on "landing precaution" . . . i.e.  don't land, over-rotate them and roll to your back . . . .

One of the truths is . . .

I miss him.  It's funny to put it that way, because I may have only seen him a handful of times over the last year, but when someone is dead and gone . . . it's a different kind of gone.  January was a rough month, sort-of. I'm thankful to have been busy, but the anniversary of his death was a precarious day.  Nobody remembered but me, so I kind of felt alone and sad.   The real surprise was his birthday in February, where I was actually really sad.  It coincided with a lady from a local bank calling me asking if they could do a prolife and feature him in their 2014 calendar of local veterans.  Of course, I said yes and have been working with their author and providing the pieces of his life history.  Still, some things just pop out or come about and they catch me by surprise.    Like this.  I'm a list maker.  I have notebooks of lists, three right here by my computer.  There's always scratch paper plus my phone for jotting things . . . . . . And since his death, when all of his little pads of paper came to live at my house, and I could begin seeing his lists, I see with such sweet  clarity where I get my obsession with making lists.

My Little Girl Has Outgrown Monkeys . . . .

This mural is gone, gone, gone.

I'm kinda sad.  And kinda glad.

Job Stress . . . .

I've been the co-owner and director of my "little work from home business" for the past 10 years.  Yes, TEN years.  I work hard at what I do.  And I'm super, super efficient.  I have a great system for axing things off of my work to-do list.  It works for me.  

Work comes in spurts.  It's like that with most positions, I reckon.   But holy gazoli . . . we have been SO stinkin' busy. 

The first quarter of this year has been unprecedented.  We've been crazy busy . . . the kind of crazy busy that we have not been since our first few months as a baby start up company, when we were doing things like writing a 400-page protocol manual and dealing with copyrights, legal stuff and setting ourselves up to actually do business.  Since January, we've added practices.  We've added states.  We've added nurses.  We are currently working towards our third orientation of this year.  Some years, we do one.  Or two.  This year, SO FAR, there was one in January -- two nurses added, another in February -- three nurses added and one slated for April, where we'll add six. 

Wowza . ..  it all I have to say.  Add to that a team centered philosophy and making daily efforts to connect with all of our remote staff, as well as routing re-vamp and all kinds of details, and we are in a busy, busy time.  Busy.  Did I say busy?   

I started out with Job Stress as the title.  Stress because it's good.  Growth is good.  Growing pains aren't too bad.  Today, I am fresh off of THE WORST meeting I have ever had with any one individual.  It was terrible and parts of it left me totally speechless.  I'm still reeling, to be completely honest.   

One of my dad's "isms" is running through my mind like a record stuck on one track . . .. "Sometimes the squeaky wheel doesn't get the grease.  Sometimes it gets replaced."