The Power of YET

          I like having people look me in the eye when we’re talking.  It annoys me when the person I’m talking to seems more focused on a toy, tablet, or another device.  For years I just thought of it as rude.  Yet over the years, I have learned that some people pay better attention when they seem focused on whatever they may have in their hands. 

          Jenna is one of those people who pay better attention when it appears that she doesn't seem to be focused at all.  She gets annoyed with people who don’t realize that she’s paying attention when she is.  I have already created a post about her ability to talk and listen at the same time.  It boggles my mind that she is able to do that. 

          Nobody ever learns at the same level – though it didn’t seem so obvious when I was a youth as it does now.  Some kids need the fidget spinners or to doodle in his/her notebook while the instructor talks.  It’s frustrating as a teacher to feel like a student is not paying attention – and surprising when that student can participate even though it appears the mind is elsewhere.  Jenna may be participating in class discussions while doing origami, but what about the students sitting near her who seem to be more interested in what she is doing than what the instructor is saying.

          Within the learning environment, we run into distractions all the time.  How do we handle these distractions while trying to create the feeling of equality though none of us will ever feel equal?  We’re not.  We are all different people learning at different rates, sharing our likes, sometimes tolerating our dislikes or not.  We fight to be equal but can’t seem to accept that we’re not.  Schools seem to be short-staffed, classes too crowded, school too small. . .

          I had experienced with different titles for this post.  The title I chose came from the topic given by one of the counselor’s of the stake president who had come to speak to our ward today.  He gave examples of pupils who would whine  “I CAN’T learn math”, “I CAN’T understand these vocabulary words”, “I CAN’T pass the physical”, “I CAN’T get a job”. . . . but he told us to ponder these things and realize we can make these things happen. “I CAN’T learn math . . . Yet”, “I CAN’T understand these vocabulary words . . . Yet”, “I CAN’T pass the physical  . . . Yet”,  “I CAN’T get a job . . . Yet”

          On Friday I had a job interview at the Wild Life Safari.  I met with two of the accountants and the director of human resources.  Roland and I had gone over some possible questions that they might ask me and some questions that I might ask them.  I wasn’t able to hear all the questions as the fan seemed to be louder than the person sitting across the desk from me.  It was the shortest interview that I have ever had in my entire life.  I know I didn’t do well.  I know I had missed some of the questions.

          Aside from working with unpredictable children and possibly animals (although the position I was applying for wasn’t directly related to the animals), I don’t generally allow myself to become distracted when I am working a job the way I do when I am at home.  However, in the exact moment, I was asked if I ever get distracted,  I was – enjoying the air but not the noise of it.  I definitely need to get my hearing checked.  I answered yes because I obviously had been distracted at that moment.  If I had said no I think I would have come across as dishonest.

          I thought I was there for a payroll position but it was for accounts payable which I have never done before in a professional manner.  I’ve paid my own personal finances – which ironically is partly why I had picked the accounting major to begin with – so I could better keep track of my budgeting so that bills would get paid on time.  Of course, I didn’t think of that until just now.  I didn’t consider any of the methods that Roland had suggested after the fact.  I wish I had the same confidence in myself that he has in me.  He is always disappointed that no one company has hired me on the spot. That's not even realistic for me at this point in time.

          The thing with Wild Life Safari is I had responded to an ad that had been posted only an hour before and was contacted that same day for an interview.  That was exciting.  Wild Life Safari is a non-profit organization. I was really excited about that – being able to work for a non-profit than a for-profit organization.  The questions I asked had to do with the organization itself.  I did ask one accounting question.  I forgot to ask how many are staffed at Wild Life Safari. Or approximately how many accounts I would be dealing with.  Or why the position happened to be open.  I really would like to be a part of their team, but I think I blew it.

          I still have a job through the school district.  I have already had a personal request to fill in for one of the aides at Coffenberry.  Just nothing in accounting . . . yet.  And that’s okay.  My job hunting and interviews are only a learning curve.  One day I’ll get better at it and maybe have the desire and confidence that Roland does.  Maybe one day I will be able to do payroll with the school district.  Just not YET.

Heavy Clouds

It’s Saturday

My plans were to sleep in

But the skies sent a pouring rain

POURING

Between 3:30 and 4:00 and

Again at 5:00

I wasn’t ready to get up

Perhaps I will return to

Slumberland

Sometime later today.

Vegetables, Ventriloquist and Perfect Weather

         

          We had lived in Douglas County less than two months the first time we had gone to the DC fair.  I know we overspent.  It was worth the smile on Jenna’s face.  It seems like there was more distance to cover that first year than this year.

          Though the fair is held every year, we have not gone to it each year.  I think it was just a matter of lack of funds in 2016.  Jenna and Roland went for a few hours in 2017.  The elements that surrounded that year were hot and smoky and I chose not to go.  They  had dressed vegetables and were gone for just a few hours.

          I don’t know that Jenna had even considered last year as she and Roland were performing in Robin Hood.  This year she decided she wanted to go and we would take Marie.  But then again, Marie drives and her old fogie parents would most likely wish to leave before they did and so we drove in separate cars.

          On Thursdays before a certain time, patrons may dress a vegetable in order to get free admission to the fair.  I guess it’s an annual event, but as the page was dated 2018 we weren’t sure.

          Roland had started the one in the middle and Jenna added the body.  She also added a potato to her own and made the one on the  right.  Mine is the one to the left.

          Since Marie was coming with us, they decided on a new approach for another vegetable – replacing a doll’s body with a potato.  Looked a bit like one of Sid (from Toy Story)’s creations. 

I liked the baby looking one (joined creation) the best but it was also the heaviest.  I had added a sock to mine.

          Jenna and Marie left about twenty minutes before we did and made it into the fair with their two potatoes.  Roland and I had to pay to get in as the two pumpkins had been left in Marie’s car.

          I took pictures of some of the creatively “dressed” vegetables that were on display.  Though I saw Jenna’s final creation, I did not see her other which Marie had entered as her own.

          We caught up with the girls who were watching ventriloquist, Steve Chaney.  Of course, Jenna volunteered to go on stage to be a human puppet.

          The weather was perfect – well, maybe not for the fairgrounds, but for me -  I don’t recall ever having gone to the fairgrounds before when the skies showed signs that it might rain.

          The fair somehow seemed smaller in size than it had five summers ago – but perhaps it was because we weren’t packed in like sardines.  Sadly, a lot of vendors did look bored.  Enjoy it while you can.  I suspect tomorrow will be a madhouse.

Let’s Compare

         Compare means estimating or measuring a difference or similarity.  For instance, you may compare the prices that are in one store compared to the prices in another.  Or you may notice the name brands generally have higher prices than the brands you have never heard of.  Albertson’s used to have a knock off brand called Janet Lee and Smith’s Food King had actually marketed one called “No Name” if you can believe that.  Today the most common knock off that I am familiar with is “Great Value” found at Wal-Mart.

          I’ve compared my life to Salt Lake with the one I have in Oregon.  I’ve compared the library systems, the transportation, the road conditions, and education.  I am always comparing the weather to itself.

          We may test the waters by first getting our feet wet.  We may practice for events that may or may not come to pass – for example, we have prepared backpacks in the event that we do have to evacuate with only a moment’s notice . . . we haven’t had to use them however and don’t really know if we are as prepared as we think we are.

    

     

          Sometimes the actual event does not have the same results as did the drill.  For example, the fire drill compared to the evacuation that I discussed in this post

          We compare how we think we should feel to how we felt or would like to feel.  We compare how we look  - we compare to ourselves, to others, supermodels, celebrities.  We compare our brains to others.  We compare our lives. We compare our size, our shape, our skin tone, our weight, our hair . . . .

          We compare the time we spent in school learning a trait or skill to finding a job in the real world where your schooling time does not count as “years experience”.  We compare others success or luck to our own.  There have been a few days in my life which I have compared to Alexander’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

          I have noticed different personalities within different cartoons.  For example, I think the Peanut Characters all represent a different personality.  Lucy is the uptight controlling personality.  Charlie Brown is the one who may allow himself as a doormat; his intentions are noble, but he often allows himself to get bullied. Schroeder is so focused on his music that he doesn’t pay much attention to anything else.  Linus represents wisdom – even with his blanket.  I have also compared Winnie-the-Pooh characters to different personalities in this post.

          We compare the taste of food.  We describe the taste by comparing to familiarity.  We compare how food is prepared.  We compare cooking styles.  We even compare how it looks to how we think it should look.

          We liken the scriptures to our own lives.  Often instructors will teach with a modern day twist comparing the scriptures to the latest movie or works in literature.  Jesus made comparisons through parables.  We make comparisons to help ourselves learn – to grow and develop.  We use analogies.

          Speaking of scriptures,  I like having two or three open books to compare verses side by side . . . there are some of us who still use books.  And how many times have we compared books to tablets or modern day technology?  Finding information on Google is less time consuming than looking up information first in the card catalog and with finding the book and then in finding the information in the book itself.

          In 2016 somebody compared our libraries to being on life support.  Voting “no” on the November ballots would pull the plug while voting “yes” would keep the doors open.

          We tend to compare the past to the present and find the pros and cons with each.  We compare the growth, the technology and the paths we have taken as individuals, as a country, as the human race.

          Two comparative posts that really stood out to me are this one as I felt had a lot of good quotes about self esteem and self worth.  I love the quote about not comparing “our behind the scenes moment to somebody else’s highlighted reel”.  So often we measure ourselves by how we are seen by others.

        and This one as it compares Christmas symbols to our beliefs in Christmas – though many are just legends it is great to have “meaning for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear” to verify the reason behind a symbol that is used such as the candy cane and Santa Claus

          I suppose I don’t really need to explain further or give more examples.  We’re all guilty of comparing probably often.

What Color is the Sky?

When I woke up this morning, I looked out the window.  The skies were gray and there was a haze which hid my view of the towers.  Was that fog or smoke?  I was not the only person who had wondered.  How long would the sky be grey before it turned blue?

On Saturday Roland and I had gone to Roseburg.  The closer we got to the city, the more overcast the skies.  We went to Home Depot.  Surprised we were not there for long before we traveled across the city to a store we had never looked at before.  Still overcast, but when we came out of the store, it was like we had entered with the weather of one day and left the store on a completely different days as the skies were blue, no clouds whatsoever and hot.

I enjoy going to the pool when it is overcast because there are usually fewer people who show for the workout.  

The fire is 65% contained now.  I haven't seen the blackened over 13,000 acres that remain.  I will get the opportunity later on this month.

And some other pics of clouds

Dash #23 Peggy Bird

          My mom’s birthday is June 29^th.  Our neighbor, Peggy, had been born on June 28^th.  Mom had been raised in San Francisco, California while Peggy had been raised in American Fork, Utah.  Peggy already had one son when she and my mom were both pregnant with Danny and me.  I was born at the end May and Danny was born in early June.  We were raised together by both moms. 

Until Jimmy was born in 1970, there were six of us:  Daryl, me, Danny, Patrick, John and Matt (in that order).  We would spend time together doing different things. They’d invite us to go on outings and do things with them.  I remember camping with the Bird family when Jimmy was just a baby.  I remember going to the amusement park with them.  I also remember Patrick and I going to Birds’ house after school after mom had gone to work for a few weeks.  I also remember staying the night when my brother, Corey was born.

I remember going to the American Fork Steel Days parade with the Birds almost every year even after Corey and Becky came along. There is one picture of Corey sitting between Jimmy and Becky, and though the other two are smiling, Corey looks bored out of his mind.  I don’t know if Kayla was around then or not.  Kayla is mom’s youngest and Becky is Peggy’s youngest and the only girl.

During the 60’s, Peggy was mother earth as her home always smelled of molasses cookies and gingerbread.  It appeared that she was always baking.  I loved the smell of her house.  She and mom would take turns driving four of us to the Deseret gym so that we could learn how to swim.  One day the car had a problem while we were on the freeway.  I was just a kid and hadn’t paid much attention to what was wrong or the cause.  My only memory of that time was seeing two “hippies” or long-haired youth assist Peggy with the car. It was in a day when the word “hippy” signaled a bad vibe for some people.  I knew their assisting was not a bad vibe.

If ever Peggy went shopping in whatever shops surrounded our area, she was never satisfied.  According to my mom, Peggy believed that Chipman’s department store in American Fork had everything and anything she could possibly need and would make the trip to American Fork just to acquire whatever it was.  Mom said she told me that she had gone with Peggy one time so that she could discover what it was that drew Peggy to Chipman’s.  Mom said she had expected a glorified K-Mart or something and was actually unimpressed with the size of the store or not appreciating the selection.

I don’t know how old Peggy was when she decided that she would go to work, but I suspect it wasn’t until after Becky had graduated high school.  Peggy left behind her mother earth and became one of five curators at the church museum.  She was the only female. 

She is quite well read and knows her church history.  Very knowledgeable.  A feminist.  I have learned a lot through her over the years.  I appreciate her more now than when I was a child.  I am grateful for the friendships that we have established.

a Final Assignment

I found the following assignment still in my files.  I remember submitting it to the writing center.  The person giving me feedback suggested I lose this first line - which I do tie into my closing statement.  As I recall, even my instructor had said it was a poor way to start out a paper.  It is called an attention grabber.  The idea was suggested to me by the dean of the English department.  I can't remember whether I stuck to my guns or not.  I think I did but did not receive full credit.  Ironically, I was not stressed about it.

       “Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.” – Mikhail Lermontov (Sweatt, 2016).

            There are many things that cause stress such as relationships, finances, health issues of loved ones, not being able to meet deadlines due to heavy traffic, power outages or other elements .  In this assignment I will focus on stress in the workplace (Cause, 2019).

            Work situations are different for each of us.  I will not be able to cover them all, but allow me to provide some examples. Employees that work in sales may feel pressure from a manager who has a deadline to meet.  Those who work in fast foods may feel tension as they deal with unsatisfied customers.  Bosses may get upset with staff members who do not show up for work or put forth their best effort to perform. Dealing with faulty equipment such as a broken copy machine or a computer that is not getting internet may also contribute to stress.

I have fulfilled many temporary job assignments working for companies that rely on one or more employment agencies. There have been cases when a business seems short-staffed due to illnesses, vacations, or other reasons. These companies may take the opportunity to negotiate a contract with an agency that will send out employees to assist with a variety of job situations. 

One of the first temporary assignments I had accepted was with a government agency near my home.  My job description was locating files for case workers in the department of child and family services or DCFS.  I did not mind the work.  I enjoyed being a floating agent as different workers at DCFS were able to utilize my skills in several areas and teams. I was happy with being a temp as I would have not enjoyed being an employee of DCFS.  I saw many workers who felt stressed by case loads, paternal issues, and placement. 

I remember an entire team evacuating the building less than a week after I had started.  Their team had been transferred to another building located in different city. If I had been a part of that team, I would not have gone.  Location is a high priority with me.  I noticed that DCFS seemed to move their employees with less than a 24 hour notice.  I do not know who was responsible for moving teams. That would have stressed me out.

Though I have occasionally felt some tension with each job I have had, I do not recall feeling so much anxiety at work as I have felt on the commute getting there or returning home.  Many workers who live in large cities are already stressed before the workday even starts (Wener, 2003).  Daylight Saving is another stress factor that may result with the work stress.  Although it only happens once (twice counting back to standard) a year, it seems to have a negative ramification on many to perform tasks responsibly.  Just because the clock displays a certain time does not mean my body will agree with it.  In fact, many will feel sleep deprived not just the first day the clocks are set forward (or back) but several days following (Daylight, 2014). Thus in addition to stress, one may also experience fatigue. The time change does not affect only those in the workforce but those who attend school regardless of what stage or grade they are in.

            I have seen people risk both their physical and mental health due to stress.  Overeating, raising one’s blood pressure or cholesterol are not ideal stress relievers as they are harmful to the body.  It is best to pause and take some deep breaths or to go for a walk to clear the mind when the tension seems overbearing (Stress, 2013). Stress effects the emotions or the amygdale part of the brain.  It may also harm the hypothalamus, a part of our brain which commands our nervous system and involuntary body functions (Understanding, 2018).

            There are many different stress relievers.  Some may be as simple as lighting a candle or chewing gum.  Some stress relievers may be more mindful such as writing about what ails you (Jennings, 2018).  I favor the journal and blog method as it is a great outsource for me.  It also helps to be able to laugh at a situation (Neis, 2019).  My brother and I created several posts about my mom and make comments about everybody involved with her care as she had dementia.  We would often write with humor in order to focus on the positive.  We were living in a sitcom at times. My husband laughs at frustrating situations all the time and it really is quite helpful.

            Allow me to refer back to my opening quote. We all experience turbulence in our lives. We need to keep in mind that we need to control the stress before it controls us.  Eventually we will all make it to the sea.  May we do so by letting go of harmful stress.