This'll be a long one. Some explanation is in order.
(This is largely due to my own lack of posting, as I'll have to explain a few things that would in other circumstances have been explained months ago.)
First off, another one of those neat points where a few ideas had a sort of crossroads in my brain that would have completely missed each other anywhere else.
-Noting that one of my friends was starting to really irritate me with his work attitude.
-Realizing that said friend was actually mirroring me, or taking his cue from me - I just hadn't been paying attention to the things I'd been saying about work. Translation: I need an attitude adjustment.
-Conversation overheard with a couple of guys looking forward to Thanksgiving (when we're underway, I think the two topics the guys discuss most are sex they're looking forward to having and food they're looking forward to eating. When I'm in the room, they usually keep it to the latter), which is now 4 months away.
All this came down to, "I need to fix my attitude. There is so much I have in my life that I'm thankful for, and I think I should talk about it more often. One day is much too short for being thankful. I want to take from now until Thanksgiving to really pay attention to blessings in my life."
This also doubles neatly because I stopped writing letters home when we made it back to the States (Praise the Lord!), and now nobody outside of my group of 8-12 friends here has any idea what I do with life. There has been some irritation expressed on the subject. Justifiably so.
Today, I am very thankful for a situation with my hard hat.
Explaining this situation will take some time.
First off, the powers that I work for have the authority to determine where I live. Underneath those powers, the team that I work for takes punctuality very seriously. Their approach to a lack of punctuality is to recommend to the powers that the individual in question take up residence in the barge. Barge life is not awful - you have a place to sleep, a place to shower, and you can get food there. It's just very un-fun, and since no one can access the barge without a certain security clearance, your social life just got zapped. There is also the slight bit about how almost every electronic amusement - your laptop, your phone, etc. - has certain features that mean they cannot be kept on the barge.
Last week, two people from this team were assigned to the barge. Admittedly, one of them showed up for work three hours late - I have no idea how you even do that - but the other was two minutes late. I've seen one person sent to the barge for showing up twenty seconds after 7 a.m. We do not mess with the punctuality.
I happen to be very appreciative of my living situation. Jewel owns a house in the next lovely little town over from where I work, Dawn's been renting one of the upstairs bedrooms for some time, and Viking and I moved into the other* about a month ago. Jewel is currently contracted to the same people I work for (she gets paid way better than I do, but her hours and responsibilities make it clear she's earning it), so most mornings, she's my ride to work.
*By which I mean, we both keep our clothes and books up there, Viking sleeps on the air bed, and I take the downstairs couch because I prefer it to the air bed.
That bit about wacky hours? Watching Jewel has taught me the importance of having my job be something I enjoy, and something I believe in. Most weekdays, she gets up at 4 a.m., has her devos, drives to work, spends two hours assembling her own information and whatever she's going to need to prepare for her team, meets with her team around 7, they'll wrap up around 3 or 4 p.m., she'll be turning over information to the night team about what they did that day, so she's usually ready to go at about 4 or 5, we'll stop and grab food on the way home, and then she just crashes. Straight to bed. Life for Jewel, during the week, is sleep, devos, and work. And she's happy. She's one of the best people I know to hang out with - you just feel like you can rest in her presence.
Every night before she crashes, I check with her what time she's leaving in the morning, she'll think through what she needs to get done before work, and come up with two hours, one hour, whatever. Last night, she realized that she would have to get in more than three hours before work, so I appealed to Viking (because I didn't feel like getting up at 3), who agreed that if I woke her at 5:30, and not before, she would be willing to take me in.
(In case you're wondering what I do with all that time before work, since my team doesn't believe in prep work - my team wears a uniform that can't be worn past the gate. So, I'll usually come in and change, and then get breakfast here, and show up about fifteen minutes early. If it's a very early morning, I'll read - I'm looking forward to having my commuter-bike, because then I can head to the gym, shower, AND get over to work in time to change and eat on those very early mornings.)
In my morning preparations, I realized at 5:40 that I was missing a critical element of my work clothes. My entire work environment is currently a construction zone, so we all wear hard hats and safety glasses to work. Normally, I leave mine in Jewel's car after work, not bothering to bring it in the house - it's just one more item I don't have to corral in the morning if it's already out there.
But, wait a minute, Jewel already left - and while I know where she parks, I also know her car is locked, and phones aren't permitted past the gate, so I'll have to run to her office (but wait, that's why she's going in so early today - her whole team's moving to a new office and she wants to get her stuff hauled so they can actually do real work during the workday - I don't know where her new office is) and get the keys and run back to the car and can I do all that and change and still make it on time...wait.
I didn't ride home with Jewel yesterday. (My brain takes a little longer on such things in the mornings.)
Yesterday was the thing over where GS works. He picked me up from work so we could make the opening announcements on time.
I left my hard hat in the Gentleman's car.
I dive for my phone. The Gentleman and I work for the same organization, but with good traffic, it's about a twenty, twenty-five minute drive between our locations. The nature of his work is that he ALSO does not take his phone with him, and I know he goes for breakfast first and then goes to work....
This is my brain in the morning. Actually, this is my brain anytime I leave the house. Details details details all pertaining to Can I Get This Thing Done?
The Gentleman is surprised, pleased, and still sleepy to hear from me at this hour, and has enough command of his faculties to recall that yes, I did indeed leave my hard hat in his backseat. And this without coffee, ladies and gentlemen! (The Gentleman is NOT a morning person. He is, however, exceedingly gracious and agrees to leave early in order to meet me at his car.)
So, Viking and I haul furiously to make it to the lee side of the peninsula, get through the gate (pleasantly, the line is short), meet the Gentleman, I get my hard hat and a hug, and we take off flying for the windward side of the peninsula.
Because there is a very slight complication regarding the gate on this side. There are so many people who work this side, and so few gates available, that if one does not make it to the gate before 6 a.m., one is probably not getting IN the gate before 6:30.
Well, we did get stuck in that line, but this has already run beastly long, so I'll just say, praise the Lord, we made it. Viking dropped me off at 6:36 (not that I was counting the minutes or anything), I covered a lot of distance at a very fast walk (running about in an area where the security guards are just a mite touchy is usually a good way to get detained and questioned), shot through a flying change of uniform (I don't think my hair has EVER looked so unprofessional for work), made it over to where I work, joined the team...two minutes to 7.
Adrenaline crash, yes, but riding that exhausted gratitude high for the rest of the morning. One more day. Never know what tomorrow's going to bring, but at least for today, I still get to live at the house.
There's so much to be thankful for.
(This is largely due to my own lack of posting, as I'll have to explain a few things that would in other circumstances have been explained months ago.)
First off, another one of those neat points where a few ideas had a sort of crossroads in my brain that would have completely missed each other anywhere else.
-Noting that one of my friends was starting to really irritate me with his work attitude.
-Realizing that said friend was actually mirroring me, or taking his cue from me - I just hadn't been paying attention to the things I'd been saying about work. Translation: I need an attitude adjustment.
-Conversation overheard with a couple of guys looking forward to Thanksgiving (when we're underway, I think the two topics the guys discuss most are sex they're looking forward to having and food they're looking forward to eating. When I'm in the room, they usually keep it to the latter), which is now 4 months away.
All this came down to, "I need to fix my attitude. There is so much I have in my life that I'm thankful for, and I think I should talk about it more often. One day is much too short for being thankful. I want to take from now until Thanksgiving to really pay attention to blessings in my life."
This also doubles neatly because I stopped writing letters home when we made it back to the States (Praise the Lord!), and now nobody outside of my group of 8-12 friends here has any idea what I do with life. There has been some irritation expressed on the subject. Justifiably so.
Today, I am very thankful for a situation with my hard hat.
Explaining this situation will take some time.
First off, the powers that I work for have the authority to determine where I live. Underneath those powers, the team that I work for takes punctuality very seriously. Their approach to a lack of punctuality is to recommend to the powers that the individual in question take up residence in the barge. Barge life is not awful - you have a place to sleep, a place to shower, and you can get food there. It's just very un-fun, and since no one can access the barge without a certain security clearance, your social life just got zapped. There is also the slight bit about how almost every electronic amusement - your laptop, your phone, etc. - has certain features that mean they cannot be kept on the barge.
Last week, two people from this team were assigned to the barge. Admittedly, one of them showed up for work three hours late - I have no idea how you even do that - but the other was two minutes late. I've seen one person sent to the barge for showing up twenty seconds after 7 a.m. We do not mess with the punctuality.
I happen to be very appreciative of my living situation. Jewel owns a house in the next lovely little town over from where I work, Dawn's been renting one of the upstairs bedrooms for some time, and Viking and I moved into the other* about a month ago. Jewel is currently contracted to the same people I work for (she gets paid way better than I do, but her hours and responsibilities make it clear she's earning it), so most mornings, she's my ride to work.
*By which I mean, we both keep our clothes and books up there, Viking sleeps on the air bed, and I take the downstairs couch because I prefer it to the air bed.
That bit about wacky hours? Watching Jewel has taught me the importance of having my job be something I enjoy, and something I believe in. Most weekdays, she gets up at 4 a.m., has her devos, drives to work, spends two hours assembling her own information and whatever she's going to need to prepare for her team, meets with her team around 7, they'll wrap up around 3 or 4 p.m., she'll be turning over information to the night team about what they did that day, so she's usually ready to go at about 4 or 5, we'll stop and grab food on the way home, and then she just crashes. Straight to bed. Life for Jewel, during the week, is sleep, devos, and work. And she's happy. She's one of the best people I know to hang out with - you just feel like you can rest in her presence.
Every night before she crashes, I check with her what time she's leaving in the morning, she'll think through what she needs to get done before work, and come up with two hours, one hour, whatever. Last night, she realized that she would have to get in more than three hours before work, so I appealed to Viking (because I didn't feel like getting up at 3), who agreed that if I woke her at 5:30, and not before, she would be willing to take me in.
(In case you're wondering what I do with all that time before work, since my team doesn't believe in prep work - my team wears a uniform that can't be worn past the gate. So, I'll usually come in and change, and then get breakfast here, and show up about fifteen minutes early. If it's a very early morning, I'll read - I'm looking forward to having my commuter-bike, because then I can head to the gym, shower, AND get over to work in time to change and eat on those very early mornings.)
In my morning preparations, I realized at 5:40 that I was missing a critical element of my work clothes. My entire work environment is currently a construction zone, so we all wear hard hats and safety glasses to work. Normally, I leave mine in Jewel's car after work, not bothering to bring it in the house - it's just one more item I don't have to corral in the morning if it's already out there.
But, wait a minute, Jewel already left - and while I know where she parks, I also know her car is locked, and phones aren't permitted past the gate, so I'll have to run to her office (but wait, that's why she's going in so early today - her whole team's moving to a new office and she wants to get her stuff hauled so they can actually do real work during the workday - I don't know where her new office is) and get the keys and run back to the car and can I do all that and change and still make it on time...wait.
I didn't ride home with Jewel yesterday. (My brain takes a little longer on such things in the mornings.)
Yesterday was the thing over where GS works. He picked me up from work so we could make the opening announcements on time.
I left my hard hat in the Gentleman's car.
I dive for my phone. The Gentleman and I work for the same organization, but with good traffic, it's about a twenty, twenty-five minute drive between our locations. The nature of his work is that he ALSO does not take his phone with him, and I know he goes for breakfast first and then goes to work....
This is my brain in the morning. Actually, this is my brain anytime I leave the house. Details details details all pertaining to Can I Get This Thing Done?
The Gentleman is surprised, pleased, and still sleepy to hear from me at this hour, and has enough command of his faculties to recall that yes, I did indeed leave my hard hat in his backseat. And this without coffee, ladies and gentlemen! (The Gentleman is NOT a morning person. He is, however, exceedingly gracious and agrees to leave early in order to meet me at his car.)
So, Viking and I haul furiously to make it to the lee side of the peninsula, get through the gate (pleasantly, the line is short), meet the Gentleman, I get my hard hat and a hug, and we take off flying for the windward side of the peninsula.
Because there is a very slight complication regarding the gate on this side. There are so many people who work this side, and so few gates available, that if one does not make it to the gate before 6 a.m., one is probably not getting IN the gate before 6:30.
Well, we did get stuck in that line, but this has already run beastly long, so I'll just say, praise the Lord, we made it. Viking dropped me off at 6:36 (not that I was counting the minutes or anything), I covered a lot of distance at a very fast walk (running about in an area where the security guards are just a mite touchy is usually a good way to get detained and questioned), shot through a flying change of uniform (I don't think my hair has EVER looked so unprofessional for work), made it over to where I work, joined the team...two minutes to 7.
Adrenaline crash, yes, but riding that exhausted gratitude high for the rest of the morning. One more day. Never know what tomorrow's going to bring, but at least for today, I still get to live at the house.
There's so much to be thankful for.
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