My Weekend: People, Places and Things

Part 1: People

If anyone ever stands a chance of truly understanding me, they must know this. In my life, there has rarely been any difference between family and friends. My parents had me at about the same time as their friends had kids (or in the case of my friend Suzanne, on the exact same day). So all of us kids were raised together. We were dressed in the same outfits. We slept in the same cribs and beds. We even went on vacation en masse. We stayed at the beach, about six or seven families in two or three houses. A dozen adults. A few dozen kids. And yes, we enjoyed it. I didn’t really know there was any such thing as a family vacation that only involved only a nuclear family. To us kids, our parents were interchangeable. To the parents, their kids were interchangeable. Discipline, love, food, money, cars, siblings — all were shared. Although we didn’t live together, we may as well have. It was the closest thing you’d ever get to a hippie socialist commune in the conservative, Bible-belt South.

Thank God it’s never changed.

We’ve never grown out of it. That big group of parents are still friends. They still get together almost every Friday night. And us kids are still close. Though life has often flung us apart like scatter shot, we have clung to each other. Whether it’s a result of the sting of misery from some terrible shared experiences or the camaraderie forged by rarely being separated, something in us all is like a magnet, a compass. We feel, without knowing, that we can never be pulled apart. We are each other’s North Star.

This past weekend, I got to hang out with some of my family/friends (to me that’s kind of like sister/wife, in a non-creepy, non-religious way). We don’t all live in the same area, so getting together is all too often a rarity. But whenever I do spend time with them, it does my soul good. It’s cleansing. It’s reinvigorating. It’s validating. And at times, it’s hard. I can’t help but get into comparisons with those who are doing “better” than I am. And I can’t help but fall to pieces over the commingled pain I share with those who aren’t doing so well. Like it or not, I am attached to them, like Siamese twins. We may pretend we have separate lives as adults, but in reality, we are conjoined.

These women are my lifeblood. No matter what other friends I find in my life, I can’t imagine anyone else will love me as much as they do. I’d like to see someone try! For even more so than my own flesh-and-blood family, these sisters have taught me what unconditional love is. And for that, I will forever be thankful.

Some of my friends and me in New Orleans

Some of my dearest friends and me in New Orleans. I think we look pretty good for a bunch of middle-aged broads!

Posted in family, friends | 11 Comments

It’s Reminiscent of The Omen, Don’t You Think?

Here’s another piece in my “Creepy Skies” photo series.

Do you know what building this is, or where it is? It’s quite famous. I’ll tell you more about it, and my weekend, a little later.

Posted in photography, travel | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Another Happy Flowchart

Well of all things. I was visiting one of my favorite sites this morning and I found another great flowchart.

Happy Flowchart

Yep. Pretty much sums it up.

By the way, this chart came from a site called Typcut. It’s got some other great stuff. I encourage you to go poke around for a bit.

Posted in charts | Tagged , | 6 Comments

The Freak Out Flowchart

My friend is freaking out about something right now. I hate it for her. She’s in a really cruddy situation. I want her to feel better, so I made her this handy-dandy flowchart.Freak Out Flowchart

It’s a good thing she loves me. And that I’m not within striking distance right now.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

It Worked!

The big migration is complete, and seems to be working. Hopefully I’ve set up all the feed stuff correctly so that if you’ve subscribed to my blog, you’re still receiving it.

I have to give the credit for this painless migration to two people. Mama Blogga wrote this awesome guide to migrating. It was so comprehensive, in fact, that I only had one issue. And the issue had nothing to do with her instructions at all. I’m pretty sure it was a buggy thing with the latest version of WordPress. You see, one of the beauties of WordPress is that is has a handy auto-import tool that seamlessly imports all your posts and comments from Blogger. But that didn’t work. It imported nothing. So that’s where my second helper came in. My crazy/funny/smart friend Brent stepped in and helped me import the Blogger site into the old version of WordPress (v2.9.2), then export it into a WordPress xml file that I downloaded, then import that file into the new version of WordPress (v3.0).

And voila. I’m here.

I still have lots of tweaking to do. But thankfully I love the redesign part. And I’m sure I’ll go a little plug-in happy for a bit. But I’m done now! Thanks for moving with me!

P.S. I did almost all of this while drinking wine on my back porch last night. And the issues bit I did this morning via conversations on Twitter and email WHILE I was entertaining company and a film crew at my house. So really, it’s VERY easy to do. Don’t be scared.

UPDATE: Looks like I did something wrong with the feeds. I’ll look into it.

13 Comments

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I’m going to try and migrate from Blogger to WordPress this weekend. Pray for me.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

What Is Your Default Setting?

I’m pretty much always on a quest to improve myself. Sure, there are times when I wallow in my mediocrity or take unnecessary pleasure in being bad. But for the most part, I swear, I’m working on it.

And I feel like I’m doing a pretty decent job of it. In fact, that’s why I celebrate getting older. Each year, it gets a bit easier to be the new and improved me. “If I’m this great at 35, just wait till I’m 50!” I think to myself.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Anyhoo, I’ve read a couple of things lately that got me thinking about the person I want to be. I read this post by Seth Godin. I recognized myself in it. Yes, I said recognized, as in past tense. I used to amplify like a maniac. Not so much anymore. But it’s hard work, not being like that. It’s a conscious choice that must be made, many times each day.

I also read this post by Rachel Held Evans. In it, she talks about the character traits she wants to develop. But she used a phrase that, for some reason, really resonated with me. She used the phrase “default setting.” And it inspired me to make a list of what I want my default settings to be.

I’m going to imagine that everything I do is controlled by little switches, and that with each thought and action, I can choose to flip, or not flip, a switch that will affect the outcome. Just to be safe, I’m going to put my switches on the desired default setting in the beginning. Here’s what my defaults will be:

  • accepting, not judgmental
  • patient, not hasty
  • leisurely, not harried
  • quiet, not loud
  • thoughtful, not careless
  • attentive, not inconsiderate
  • satisfied, not hungry
  • informed, not ignorant
  • calm, not irritable
  • energetic, not tired
  • rational, not crazy
  • grounded, not flighty
  • present, not disconnected
  • on task, not scattered
  • loving, not disdainful
  • generous, not stingy
  • adventurous, not timid
  • rich, not impoverished
Sheesh, keeping those default settings is going to be hard work. But I’m up to the task. In fact, I may even come back and add more from time to time.
What about you? What are your default settings?
4 Comments

Something Wicked This Way Comes

I took this photo of the Ferris Wheel at Riverfest. I think it only reinforces my belief that carnival rides are creepy.


5 Comments

I Jumped, I Flew, I Landed, I Lived

I never really talk about work in this space. I can’t pinpoint the exact reason why. It’s a combination of things. Mainly because I’m always nervous about mixing up some bad work/personal life cocktail that makes me wake up the next morning filled with regret. (Says the hypocrite who married the guy who was once her boss for a short period of time. Whatever.) I also never say much about work because what I do isn’t the most exciting thing in the world. To others, it’s always seemed fairly glamorous, but to me, it can be a bit tedious. Except when I’m meeting famous people. That bit rocks. But I really haven’t talked about work much recently because I didn’t have lots nice to say, and well, you know what your mama told you about that and all. It’s not that I didn’t like my job. It’s that I didn’t like how I was having to do it. And I just don’t want this space to be the place where I whine about work all the time. I bore you enough already, I’m sure.

But recently, things have changed. Remember that leap of faith I told you about yesterday? Well, I took a new job. It wasn’t an easy decision. I left a perfectly adequate, well-paying position to take a job in an unknown field, with unknown people, with a less certain paycheck. It was scary. But God help me, I had to do it. For my career. For my family. For me. I’m in my third week at me new job now, and I LOVE IT. I’m getting to do exactly what I enjoy doing, and I’m learning so much. Plus, I’m commuting less and getting home at a decent time each evening, which has done loads for my mental health.

What am I doing, you ask? I won’t go into lots of details, but I will say I’m getting to work with this awesome gal. Before she ever even had an open position, I admired her talent, her drive and just plain liked her as a person. I used to dream about getting to collaborate with her one day. And now, look at me.

I probably still won’t talk about work much here. I do prefer keeping my professional and personal lives as far apart as possible. Plus, I’m working on launching a business-type site where I will have a forum to talk about what I do. I’ll be sure to give you details on that when it gets up and running, just in case you’re interested. So yeah, I’ll still be here, making fun of my kids, talking about my travels and sharing recipes from time to time. But just know that there’s a happier me behind this blog now.

I’m glad I leapt.

Posted in faith, happiness, work | 4 Comments

Stepping Out In Faith

There’s a really cool church here in Little Rock with a really cool website. At times, they open up their site to voices from outside the congregation (a noble act, which more churches should endeavor to do). Not too long ago, I was honored to be asked by the church’s founder to write a piece on faith. I encourage you to read it here.

From the piece:

There I was, the girl who’s always smugly thinking about how strong her faith is, how solid her relationship with Christ is, forgetting to have any faith at all. I was forgetting to shut up already about the negatives. I was only thinking about the bad that could happen, and forgetting the wonderful ways in which my life could change. 

Big changes have happened recently. Go read about my leap of faith, and then come back soon. I’ll tell you how the story ends.

Posted in faith | 2 Comments