Maybe it's time that I told you

I am in the middle of orchestrating a career change. Maybe I shouldn't be writing about it on the internet yet. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you. Not because I don't want you to know, but because I don't want my boss to know. Not yet.

But it's getting harder for me to talk about the things on my mind without talking about it so let's just go ahead and get some things out in the open.

Here's the deal. My job is a fine job. Really. No major complaints about it. Except one - it isn't me. As in, the kind of person who is good at this sort of job is someone different from me. And it has taken me some time to figure this out. To learn enough about me to know this isn't a good fit for me. Someone who is a CFO should be organized and timely. They shouldn't mind doing tasks and they should be good at and comfortable with making decisions. Also, they should be good with deadlines.

As in, not me. I like to work with people and gather information and solve problems. I'm not all that organized and I procrastinate and I don't like doing tasks and I hate making decisions. And I have learned that there are rarely hard and fast deadlines in life. So the result is that my current job is anxiety-producing. Chronic acid reflux. Major jaw clenching in my sleep, to the point of waking up with sore teeth and a headache. So I'm beginning the process of doing something else with my life.

The goal, essentially, is to live my life for a living.

My status update

Meredith is uncomfortable finding out about your relationship status change through facebook.

It has happened a few times and I'm always insanely curious. I mean, surely there's a story there, girl who went from engaged to single to in a relationship to single to married all within a few months. And guy who went from engaged to single. And guy who went from married to "it's complicated." And even though we haven't spoken in over ten years, you apparently want to talk about it because you put it on facebook.

I feel like this is an aspect of facebook that has been a lot more meaningful that it was ever intended. I mean, when you sign up, you enter all this info about yourself so that people that you haven't talked to in a while can find out about your post high school life pretty quickly. They see where you work, how much education you have, who you married or who you are dating, and then they flip through your pics to see your kids (or your dogs.)

But then, things change. When do you decide to change your facebook status? I used to wonder why people changed their status instead of just removing their status altogether. Because aren't people going to ask questions?

But then I realized that there's really only one reason - they want people know. They want people to ask questions. Not out of morbid curiousity's sake, but for the sake of kindness and concern. I've recently begun learning the lesson that one of the worst things you can do for someone who is undergoing a major life change is not to ask them about it or mention it at all.

So I guess I'm a little glad that facebook lets me know where a little kindness might be appreciated.

Operation Nice

I ate lunch in Rittenhouse Square today. I love that park. Just a whole city block of grass and benches and trees and shade. It's lovely. (Also, I love that in Philadelphia you can sit outside during lunch in July and not die. Texas summers are brutal.)

So today, I was eating lunch and a couple of women walked by with baskets of flowers that had tags on them. They passed me and suddenly one of them stopped and turned to me. She handed me a flower and said, "This is for you."

It was a lovely flower. A pink carnation.

Behold:
The tag says: "This gesture is courtesy of Operation Nice. Pass it on. OPERATIONNICE.COM."

Here's a closer shot.

I thought it was so great! Such a lovely flower and I sure love pink. I was already thinking of showing Jeff when I got home that night.

And then it hit me. I wasn't supposed to keep it. I was supposed to pass it on. At first, I was totally fine with that. You receive something nice and then you pass it along to someone else. How great is that?

But then you have to actually do it. Like you have to pick someone out of the crowd and walk up to them and hand them a pink carnation.

Suddenly, Operation Nice became Operation Let's Make The Rest Of Your Lunch Awkward As You Try To Decide Who To Give The Flower To.

First off, I didn't want to give it to a nicely dressed business man. I was afraid of looking like I was hitting on someone so I decided against that. Besides, then he'd just use it to actually hit on someone and I didn't want to enable any unsolicited come-on.

Then I started thinking about maybe who deserved the flower more or who would most appreciate it. There were a few homeless men around that I could have given it to, but then I was afraid I was suffering from a messiah complex: "See how much better your day is now that I, a young white woman, has given you, an older homeless man, a pink flower. Feel blessed and praise God."

So I nixed that idea too.

After a few minutes I looked up and saw three elderly ladies walking down the sidewalk. The one in the middle was using a walker. And so I decided - she, the walker lady, was going to get my pink carnation.

As she and her friends approached, I grabbed the flower and stood up. I took a step towards her and said, "This is for you."

At first she seemed a little confused, but her friends started saying things like, "Awww, that's so nice!" She took the flower and said, "Thank you, that's very kind of you." I was glad she appreciated it. She smiled real big and then she said, "God bless you, sweetheart."

Then I started to get a little uncomfortable. I mean, you know, it's just a flower, lady. I was just trying to be nice. I didn't know it was going to make your day or anything and OH MY GOSH WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Why am I embarrassed that the gesture means more to you than I had intended. I mean, isn't that good?

I spent the walk back to work thinking about how apparently not used to being kind I am, and how not used to interacting with kind people we must all be.

Maybe I'll try and do something about that.

The thing is I'm bad at follow through

My husband laughs at me every time I say that. No, not that I'm bad at follow through, but when I start a sentence with "The thing is..."

I never knew how much I did it until he started pointing it out. I say it A LOT.

Anyway, Jeff and I have decided that we don't have a dining room. We used to. And actually, we still have a room with a table in it. But we never eat in there. The thing is we have to walk from the kitchen through the living room, past the couch and the TV in order to get to the dining room. And we never make it.

So, yeah, we decided this weekend that we don't have a dining room. We have a project room instead. It's the room where all the projects happen. Well, where they get started. And where I slowly make progress on them. Where I close my eyes and dream about how great these projects are going to be when they are done.

But it's not actually a room where I finish projects. At least not yet.

So I think there are five projects going on in there right now.

The first is the room itself. Back in March, Jeff and I painted the room blue. And I mean BLUE. Cosmic blue. It's very, very blue. And I really like the color. But we haven't finished actually putting the room together so that it looks like a nice room. Right now, it's just blue. There's nothing on the walls, I don't have all the furniture I need, etc. In fact, we don't even have all the painter's tape down from when we painted FOUR MONTHS AGO.

I'm gonna have to change the curtains. Looks too red, white and blue in here.

Things I'm gonna use to decorate when I decorate some day. Also, I need to dust.

Also, there's the dresser. A friend was moving a few weeks ago and decided not to take her kids' dresser with them. So I took it. It was mustard yellow. It's not anymore. It's mostly painted. But it's not finished. When it's done, it'll go in the guest room.

The dresser.

The drawers.

The doors.

Also, there's the pot rack. I want a pot rack in my kitchen and I found one at IKEA that I liked so I bought it. But it's too long, so I have to get Jeff to cut it to the right length. And it's not the right color, so I have to sand it a little and then prime and paint it. It's still in the box.


Also, there are the dining room table chairs. Someone was getting rid of some chairs and had them out by the trash. So Jeff and I took them home. I want to paint the wood and re-cover the cushions. It's partly done. But not completely.

This chair hasn't been painted. It has been re-covered,
but the fabric wasn't pulled tight enough so I need to redo it.

Other cushions in various stages of being re-covered.
And then stacked on top of each other.

Then there are the other chairs. We got them at the Penn Move Out Sale. These are like standard dorm room chairs. The plan is to re-cover and repaint one of them and turn the other into an ottoman. I have no idea how to turn a chair into an ottoman.



One of these days, I'll finish one of these projects and I'll feel really good about it. Maybe someday I'll finish all five. Then I'll deserve a party.

Because it'll be a big deal for me. Because I start a project and then get distracted with a different one. The thing is I'm bad at follow through.