General Jackassery

I am no poet, nor am I a writer, but I do appreciate the ones who are.

This is from an email that someone sent to our whole office. Maybe what our boys are doing over in Iraq is right and maybe it’s wrong, but I think it’s important that we remember they all volunteered to defend our country and to defend us. So when you see them remember that though you may not believe in War, your fight is not with them, it’s with the politicians that sent them there. They are just trying to do what’s right.

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My boredom level is reaching critical levels! If my boss doesn’t go home so I can leave very soon I think I’m going to explode. Bits and pieces of Todder’s Greymatter (what little there is) will be splattered all over this nice government computer!

Geof said he wasn’t going to do this because it is clich鮠I agree that it is clich頢ut since my site hasn’t be up and running all year I think I’m going to go ahead and do my year in review. Especially since this has been one of the most interesting, exciting, painful, happy, sad years of my life.

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Amazing. Christmas is only three days away and I was at work today, will be tomorrow and will be at work on Christmas eve as well. I’m not sure what I’m going to do on Christmas Eve, it’s really the first time in my life that I will be alone on Christmas Eve. Jackie will be headed out of town at some point on Wednesday and I’ll be staying at home. I’ll drive to Birmingham on Christmas Day, and I suppose I could head down there Wednesday night, but I just don’t like the idea. So, I looked at the schedule for the Church that I’ve really always considered home and they have a Christmas Eve service at 6:00 that I might go to. Then I guess I’ll turn in early and head to Birmingham in the morning.

It’s definitely going to be an interesting week. Aside from being alone for the first time in my life on Christmas Eve I’m not sure what my plans are going to be for this weekend. I got home from being on the road this weekend to find that Nanook had a pretty serious rash on his belly that he’s licked all the hair off of that area and the skin is infected. Anyway, I decided that now was the time to take both the dogs to the vet for a check-up, their vaccinations, and to get that rash looked at. Niki has a 100% clean bill of health, and so does Nanook with the exception of the rash. The rash is actually the mange and the sore spot on his belly is a full blown infection for which he now has to take oral antibiotics for the next two weeks. Also, part of the treatment for the mange was that he had to get a bath with medicated shampoo, then he had to be dipped. One of the side effects of having the dip that he got is that he is not allowed to be bathed or get wet at all for the next two weeks, when he gets to do it again and two weeks later when he gets to do it AGAIN. So Nanook get’s to be an inside dog for atleast the next six weeks.

So, between having to be inside and having to take medicine for the next two weeks twice a day I pretty much have to either be home or he has to come with me. Not necessarily a good idea either way. Not sure what to do.

Anyway, this is shaping up to be a not so great Christmas. To top it all off Nanook and Niki cost me a huge amount of money today. I guess I should say that Nanook cost me an obscene amount of money and Niki was rather reasonable.

I’ve never been the one that needed help! I’ve always been the one that people came to for help, encouragement, just to have someone listen to them while they talked. It’s hard when you come to the realization that you’re really the one that needed the help all this time. Last night I used an anology that struck a chord with me. I’ve always thought that easiest way to learn something was to teach someone else what you’re trying to learn. You spend so much time trying to explain it the other person that it eventually clicks with you and you totally understand what it is that you need to do. Last night in the process of listening and advising a friend of mine I realized that I was telling them to do something that I needed to do myself but just like this person I don’t really know how to do it. See, it’s one thing to think about the future, it’s another thing to worry about it and fear it. It’s one thing to remember the past, it’s another to dwell on it.

Have you ever had a scab that you constantly picked at? It took about 2 months for a tiny little knick to heal when it could have healed in a week if you had just left it alone.

Dwelling on the past is like picking at a scab. Someone hurt you 10 years ago but you constantly remember what that person did to you. Maybe they meant to do it and maybe they didn’t but 10 years down the road you’re still thinking about it. Refusing to let it go. The wound is constantly refreshed because you keep pealing back the scab and letting it bleed. There are times when you HAVE to let things go. Scars add character to a person, they mold them and help to guide the way a person is. It’s not a bad thing to be hurt from time to time, but you have to let yourself heal. Sometimes that healing process begins with just forgiving yourself. We’re all human and we’re entitled to make mistakes. God gave us the will to make our own decisions and he allowed us to make those decisions freely. God did not make us perfect, he didn’t give us the ability to read minds or see into the future and he certainly didn’t make us infallible. So why is that we hold ourselves accountable for mistakes that we made years ago? Yes you have to stand up and face the consequences of those mistakes, but no one expects you to be perfect and no one ever expects you to make it through life without messing up somewhere. Forgive yourself and forgive the ones that cause you harm, learn from the mistakes that you make and move one. God didn’t give us the ability to go back in time and correct our mistakes either. You can’t change what’s already done. Just do the best you can to live with it.

Worrying about the future is just as damaging as dwelling on the past. I’ve spent the last 4 months scared to death that I won’t get what I want. I didn’t realize that fear is causing things to go in a direction that I don’t want them to go. Prepare for the future, do the best you can and keep getting up everyday. That’s all you can do. You’ll never be able to cover all your bases, you’ll never be able to plan for every contingency and ultimately you’ll never be able to guide your future. The only thing you can do is hope for the best and plan for the worst. So why should I worry about it if I can’t REALLY control it? The answer to the question is a very simple, “You shouldn’t worry about it!”

Dwelling on the past and worrying about the future have been my biggest down falls over the course of my life and I’ve missed out on a lot of things because I was too busy worrying or hurting about something that I couldn’t change and I couldn’t control. I want to be able to enjoy my life, to think about the good memories, to enjoy my time now and to not worry about the future. I’m finally starting to realize what I need to do to be happy, but in all the changes that I’ve made over the past months I realize that it’s still a “Long Way Home”.

Bebo Norman is a wonderful artist.

It’s pretty long for those of you like me that are slow readers. I thought it was well worth the read. I posted something a couple of weeks back that I fealt like so many people have lost touch with what Christmas is really about, this story relates to the meaning of Christmas.

The Filling Station
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The old man sat in his gas station on a cold Christmas Eve. He hadn’t been
anywhere in years since his wife had passed away. He had no decorations, no
tree, no lights. It was just another day to him. He didn’t hate Christmas,
just couldn’t find a reason to celebrate. There were no children in his life
His wife had gone.

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It’s been a while since I posted so here’s a picture I took as we were leaving Dallas on Friday. We flew through a pretty serious front and this picture is at about 30,000 feet in the air. (That will give you an idea of what kind of thunderheads they were.) It made me think how small and insignificant humans really are in the grand scheme of things. It makes our problems seem that much less important.

Well I thought I was going to bed early. Since I was up at 3:30 this morning it only seemed fair that I hit the sack WELL before midnight. Obviously that hasn’t happened. Here’s hoping I can atleast limit the damage!

In other news, have I mentioned that I don’t like being TDY at this stage of my life or that I didn’t want to be TDY on my Birthday? Okay, I thought so!

I started out this morning at 3:30 A.M. CST in Huntsville, Alabama. Buy the time most people are starting to wake up and get ready for work I was on an Airplane headed west. By the time lunch rolled around I’d flown 1500 miles and was in Pueblo, CO. We stopped, had lunch and then headed to the field where Thad and I picked up some of the last bit of Survey data we needed for the design that we’re working on. This is what we saw as we were leaving the field this evening. It’s been a long day! I don’t want to be here, but it’s all in a day’s work. The good news is that we’re trying to get home earlier on Friday. Don’t know if it’s really going to happen, but we’ll see.

Hope everyone had a great day!

I rode my bike today for the second day in a row, something I haven’t done in almost three weeks. It cleared my mind and allowed me to think about some things that I haven’t really thought about in a while.

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