Tulips blooming in the snow

Well, we made it. As of last Saturday, we finished our year of “firsts”. It’s supposed to get easier, right? I’ll stop missing her so much? Guess that’s too much to hope for; I mean, how can you stop missing your mother? I spent the day being nothing. Slept until my eyes wouldn’t stay shut anymore, then parked myself on the couch & watched TV. Surprisingly I didn’t feel upset, or sad, or whatever. I just felt nothing. I think in some ways, that was easier, but also harder.

The firsts are over. Now it’s time to learn how to cope with this new “normal”.

This weekend I was up at my dad’s, and since my church up there was having their annual Christmas program (and meal afterward), dad came with me. They were supposed to do “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”, but since most of their cast was sick or out of town, we watched the movie instead. Interesting concept, watching a movie in church.

 

If you’ve never seen it, here’s a quick overview of the story. The Herdmans are the absolute worst children in the world, as the narrator informs us in the beginning. They lie, steal, smoke, talk about women’s underwear, and in general terrorize the other kids in town. The only safe haven for the other kids is church, a place that the Herdmans would never visit. However, through several twists of fate, the awful Herdmans not only come to church, but manage to get cast in the annual Christmas Pageant. The other kids are resentful, the adults are scandalized, and the Herdmans are enjoying their newest powers of destruction.

 

During the rehearsals, it comes out that none of the Herdmans have heard the Christmas story. “Don’t you know who Jesus is?” They’re puzzled by this story of a baby King born in a barn, shocked at the lack of welcome he received, and share their opinion of what they would have done differently. As the play director states at one point, “this might be the first Christmas pageant where the shepherds beat up the Wise Men, and Mary runs off with the baby!”

 

As in all sappy Christmas movies (I’m a sucker for sappy Christmas, so I’ve seen more than my share!), the Herdmans have a change of heart and learn the true meaning of Christmas. In the end, they wind up teaching the children and adults some valuable lessons about true Christ love.

 

Now, I know the story is supposed to be about the Herdmans and their transformation, but while watching the movie, I couldn’t help but focus in on the church and other kids. One girl follows the Herdmans around, making notes of all their sins so she can show it to everyone when the play winds up being a failure. The adults try to have the pageant canceled. The only one fighting for the Herdmans is Grace, the pageant director. She didn’t ask to be in charge, she didn’t ask for the Herdmans to be in the play, but she’s determined to make this the best Christmas pageant ever.

 

How many times have the Herdmans come to our church? How have we treated them? How many other Herdmans are out there? People we judge based on their actions, yet we don’t consider that maybe they act that way simply because they don’t know any other way. People we don’t take time to speak to, let alone get to know. At one point, Grace’s children are complaining that they’re dirty and smelly. Their father points out that Mary and Joseph were that way too. Hungry, cold, smelly, dirty from traveling all that way on a donkey; alone and friendless in a strange town. And instead of a welcoming greeting, they’re forced to make do with a barn and a feed trough.

 

My wish this Christmas is that we all have a few Herdmans visit. And may we, like Grace, share with them the true reason behind this season of love, peace and hope.

It’s the middle of November, which means I’ve almost made it through this whole dreadful year. This time last year, I knew 2008 would be miserable, so I’m just looking forward to January 11 when my year of “firsts” is over & I can get back to figuring out what the new “normal” is.

I can remember one thanksgiving a couple years back. Mom was rushed to the hospital a couple days before, with a tentative release date of Thanksgiving morning. So I spent most of the Wednesday before on the phone going over the recipes, order to cook things, & checking to see what goes next. By the end of the day, I was worn out from countless phone calls & mom’s “hounding” me….and what I wouldn’t give to have that year back.

It’s weird, I knew the coming holidays would be rough. Mom always made a big fuss over them. No matter how dysfunctional we were, it was still about family & being together. And even as bad as she was last year, with her nurse doing most of the decorating & friends helping me prepare the meal, she was still there, a vital part of our holidays. Now, that vital part’s gone, and I’m starting to feel more alone than I did right after the funeral. It’s like, during the funeral & right after, there was so much to do. Let’s get the service planned…let’s get the closet cleaned out…let’s close out accounts & get things switched around. And now, just as the holidays are approaching, all the to-dos are done, & I’m left with facing my feelings. And dealing with feelings is something I don’t deal with very well.

After, in my opinion, WAY too long of a campaign, all of the votes have been tallied & we have a new president. For better or worse, Obama will be our next president.

There’ve been a lot of posts about this election. Dire warnings about what will happen if we elect a black man; hurtful and hateful statements that are skewed, embellished, or flat out lies; bitter resentment because of the outcome. Since I refuse to argue politics with anyone, I really haven’t had any fall out from the election, but I know people who have lost friends over it. I have co-workers who are unbelievable arrogant about the results. And I’ve heard the spiteful declaration that “if he’s elected, I’m moving to Canada.” 

Fact is, we live in a country where the people elect who they want to lead them. Hopefully, they choose based on who they believe to be the better qualified and not based on some grade-school popularity contest. And when the man–or woman–we support isn’t elected, what then? Do we throw a temper tantrum, declare “not my president!” & act like a spoilsport? Or do we accept it, move on & pray for our leader? I, for one, did not vote for Obama. I don’t think he’s the most qualified, his liberal views are too extreme for the nation’s leader, & quite frankly, I’m concerned about the possible aftermath of electing a black man in this country. For all we say we’re evovled & have moved past the atrocities of the 60s, there are still too many good ol’ boy rednecks that act stupid & don’t think about the consequences. Or, the threat that some terrorist will see this as a perfect opportunity to damage our country even more.

He wasn’t my choice, but he is my president. And despite how I feel about his politics, I will accept him and support him as such. I may be on the other side, but my hope and prayer is that he will be able to do something that very few presidents ever have: unite this country into one nation. He’s facing a monumental task: the economy is at its worst, unemployment is high, we’re in the middle of 2 wars. I pray that his platform of “Change” will indeed be a reality. I pray that his words of moving forward together will be accomplished. I pray that we can all learn from McCain’s concession speech:

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

And, if you’ve read this far, I encourage you to visit http://www.zefrank.com/from52to48withlove/ for a visual statement of the need to unite during this new chapter of our lives.

Congratulations, Mr. Obama. I may not have voted for you, but I will support you as my next president. I pray that you have the wisdom, guidance, strength and compassion to lead our country to the best of your ability.

So it’s been brought to my attention that y’alls are lost w/out my tails of horror and absurdity, so here’s the latest chapter.

Our agency was consumed by the dark side…I mean, transitioned to DHS. Former agency said repeatedly that they wanted this to go smoothly, that our members and provider agencies were the most important thing & they didn’t want them to suffer during this time. Uh huh, anyone ever hear of the phrase, “ya right!” Anyway, last week began the network switchover. Supposedly they had everything ready to go & come Wed, we’d come in & everything would be switched over w/out a hitch. Wed we came in to find that the whole network was down. No problem, they’re working on it & it’ll be done by end of day. Finally Fri part of it came back online. Coupled with the 4 days we’ve already been down, this makes almost 2 weeks of no work in the last month. Then Fri I find out that our managers at the former agency were told to go thru all the files, choose which ones DHS should get, & only those would be transferred. I was able to check, & if what I’m seeing, a lot of what we need to do our job isn’t getting transitioned. Talk about petty! For example, they have also:

*stolen every trash can in the public areas (break rooms, file rooms, copy rooms, etc.)
*confiscated all office supplies, leaving us with barely anything
*refused to let anyone in who is coming to see DHS (we’re in a secure building, so you have to be buzzed in.)

We’ve also discovered that the huge project we were working on, under the impression that it had to be done for the transition, wasn’t even presented to DHS, that instead the CEO is using it to brag about “see what we did?”

I’ve tried to remain positive about all this. I have friends at the old agency, & it’s hard not working with them after all these years. But when they’re being so petty & childish, it’s enough to make me want to sever all ties. Enough is enough! Much as I was dreading leaving, I can’t wait until they move us.

This is mainly for my benefit, but if anyone has some advice I’d be happy to hear it.

 

Our company provides administrative support for a government waiver program, & recently the state has opted to take over that role. We have the option of going with the state, & thus continuing to do what we’re doing, or leaving to “explore other career opportunities” as it’s called around here. Essentially, I have to get a new job, whether it be with the state or with someone else. There are definite good & bad points for staying, and for going for that matter. And since I work better with things spelled out in black and white, I’m trying to objectively list the pros/cons for staying here.

 

Pro:

I wouldn’t have to pack up & move

Continue working w/ people I know & like

Same pay as what I’m making now (& actually a little higher)

Great benefits, + pension, + retirement fund

Won’t have to look for another job

Training available

Access to other government agencies

 

Con:

Could make more working in private sector

Current pay is better, but raises are rare

Do I really want to work for them for 30 years?

Could use this opportunity to explore other careers

Get away from the politics

Olympic Standings

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

Normally I don’t do movie reviews, because let’s face it, everyone’s opinion is different. Give me any movie & I’ll give you 50 reasons to watch it, then turn around & give you 50 more not to watch it. Besides, I’m no good at reviewing what a movie was about. I either give too much information, or not enough. But every once in a while, a movie comes along that really gets me. Not because of the effects or storyline or the big names, but because of the message behind it.

Tonight I wandered through the movie store, looking for something entertaining to watch. Extreme Home Makeover has been replace by the high school musical tryout show, & I wasn’t in the mood for Big Brother. And when you only have rabbit ears, your choice of shows is limited. Anyway, wandering through the movie store, this one caught my eye: disFIGURED. The back sounded interesting enough; not $15 for a ticket, popcorn & soda interesting, but interesting enough for a Sunday night rental.

The story revolves around two women: Lydia and Darcy, who are polar opposites who share a lot of similarities. Darcy is a recovering anorexic; Lydia is morbidly obese. Darcy is praised and admired by her friends; Lydia is mocked and humiliated by homeless men as she walks by.  Both suffer from different ends of the eating disorder spectrum, both are struggling with acceptance and reconciling how they see themselves to how the world sees them. Despite their differences, or probably because of them, they strike up a friendship that is brutally honest & full of insecurities. At one point, Lydia asks Darcy what she thinks of her body. “I think it’s disgusting,” Darcy replies.

Lydia finally reaches the breaking point in her struggle, and asks Darcy for anorexia lessons. What a horrible thing to say, what kind of sick person would even joke about something like that? At first Darcy seems to share my opinion, then reluctantly agrees to help. She helps Lydia clean out her cupboards, starts her on a food journal, instructs her in some tricks to keep from using food as a crutch.

Tying all of this together are scenes of the group meetings, where members talk about their experiences and share their daily struggles. Instead of coming off as a typical b—- session (this is a pg-rated blog, so you can fill in the blanks yourself), there’s an underlying thread of optimism and hope running through these meetings. While they share about the stares and whispers, they also confide in their joys and hopes. As touching as the story was, these sessions were so much more meaningful to me, probably because it was so honest & heartfelt.

The movie ends without an ending; Lydia doesn’t wake up a size 5, Darcy doesn’t sit down to a dinner table & start eating, neither one finds a man that declares his love is genuine & true, nor do they go off arm-in-arm singing to the world about how much they love themselves. Instead, it ends on a hopeful note.

The whole message of the movie is learning to accept who we are no matter who that is. Fat, thin, short, tall, black, white, purple or polka dotted, you have to love yourself. And as someone who’s struggled with that for as long as I can remember, I can attest to how difficult that can be.

So next time you’re in the movie store, take a look at disFIGURED. It’s not a lighthearted romance, and I wouldn’t advise it for when you’re wanting something airy & fun. But for anyone who has ever struggled with her appearance (which includes about 99.475% of the female population), it’s a great look at the struggles and milestones that we all face.

A friend of mine blogged about this, & since I’m such a bookworm I thought I’d check it out.

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.

 

 “The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

 

(books in bold are the ones I’ve read)

 

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

 

2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

 

3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

 

4. The Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling

 

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

 

6. The Bible

 

7 . Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

 

8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

 

9. His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman

 

10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

 

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

 

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

 

13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

 

14 . The Complete works of Shakespeare

 

15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

 

16. The Hobbit –J.R.R. Tolkien

 

17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

 

18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

 

19. The Time Traveler’s Wife

 

20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

 

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

 

22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

 

23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens

 

24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

 

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

 

26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

 

27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

 

29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

 

30 . The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

 

31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

 

32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

 

33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

 

34 . Emma – Jane Austen

 

35. Persuasion – Jane Austen

 

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

 

37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

 

38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres

 

39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

 

40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

 

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell

 

42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

 

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

 

45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

 

46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

 

47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

 

48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

 

49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding

 

50. Atonement – Ian McEwan

 

51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel

 

52. Dune- Frank Herbert

 

53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

 

54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

 

55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

 

56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 

57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

 

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

 

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

 

62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

 

63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt

 

64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

 

65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

 

66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac

 

67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

 

68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

 

69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

 

70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

 

71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

 

72. Dracula – Bram Stoker

 

73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

 

74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

 

75. Ulysses – James Joyce

 

76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

 

77. Swallows and Amazons

 

78. Germinal – Emile Zola

 

79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

 

80. Possession – AS Byatt

 

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

 

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

 

83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker

 

84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

 

85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

 

86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

 

87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White

 

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

 

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

 

91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

 

92. The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery

 

93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

 

94. Watership Down – Richard Adams

 

95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

 

96. A Town like Alice- Nevil Shute

 

97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

 

98. Hamlet- William Shakespeare

 

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

 

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

 

49 out of 100. Ok, so I’m a book nerd. Does it make me nerdier that I’m thinking about taking this list to the book store next time I go?