Cures for the Grumps...

Today I almost veered off my attempted course of positivity by being in a cranky mood. It happened because I was trying to get things done at work and the website I needed to use kept crashing. Also, our office was cold. Just as it’s the small things that make life better, it’s also the small things that can make us crotchety.

Still, when I went home for lunch, I was bound and determined to be in a better mood when I got back. Having two waggy-tailed pups greeting me when I got home was a help. Also, after my healthy lunch of carrots, broccoli and cauliflower in low-fat cheese sauce, I splurged and ate a Cadbury Crème Egg. I shouldn’t have splurged because Cadbury Crème eggs don’t exactly fall under the “lose 15 pounds by eating healthy” diet that I’m on but, well, sometimes, you just have to ignore the schoolmarm voice in your head that says “Put. That. Egg. Down. Now. It’s BAD for you!!!!”.

So, I ate the egg. And it was very tasty. Of course, I miss the days when I used to eat four or five of the things and not gain an ounce nor feel guilty but, well, it’s probably better that those days are behind me.

After I ate my egg, I spent some time dropping stones into the sewer grate for the pups. Today had the added bonus of water sloshing down there because it rained a lot yesterday. Rory and Sookie get VERY excited when there’s water sloshing down there. Our stones made a very satisfying PLOP whenever we dropped one.

Then I walked around the garden. It’s amazing to see how much spring has taken over. The lilac bushes have the first teeny tiny signs of flowers coming on them and the hyacinths and daffodils are proudly blooming.

Best yet, my very first piece of asparagus had pushed its way up. I planted the asparagus last year at the beginning of the summer. I had to let it grow and not pick it so it would have seeds. This year, I have my very first edible piece. I’m going to let it get bigger but it’s very exciting. I’m a little addicted to asparagus anyway but to have my very own makes me feel like, well, a grownup.

Fortunately, with the help of my dogs, the crème egg and the asparagus, my bad mood had gone and I spent the afternoon in a much better mood.

It also helped that I decided that a little singing was in order in my office. Thus, I sang a selection of Mumford and Sons songs quite loudly and off key for a while in my office. That helped. Everyone in my office has a sing at some point so it’s not like anyone notices. My fellow recruiter was belting out “I will Always Love You” to his computer earlier. We’re a singing kind of office at times.

My singing helped my mood a lot. I like being in a good mood at work. It helps me get back to my enjoyment of the small things. Today’s small thing was that our branch administrator went to Sam’s club and stocked up on drinks for the office. She bought Coke Zero. I got to get a Coke Zero right from the box rather than from the fridge. I don’t like cold drinks too much unless it’s very hot outside. I like them room temperature. I often get one out of the fridge in the morning and sit it on my desk to warm up. Thus, getting a fresh Coke Zero and not having to wait for it to warm up was quite exciting.

I am aware that this is an odd thing to get excited about but, well, if you read my blog, you’ll know it doesn’t take much to get me excited. Even a lukewarm Coke Zero can do it.

Also, my branch administrator bought a giant box of Cheez Its. I like Cheez Its. They involve cheese and salt, two things of which I am very fond. I find them tempting but, well, I had a Cadbury Crème egg at lunch and I don’t think the schoolmarm in my head would allow a second breach with regards to eating healthy.

I seem to be the only one resisting the Cheez Its. Everyone has little cups on their desk filled with crackers. Their fingers are slightly orange. I find that amusing. I don’t like orange fingers which is why I eat my Cheetos and Cheez Its with chopsticks, toast tongs or a fork, depending on what is on hand.

The nice thing is, I wasn’t sitting at my desk thinking, “I’m SO good for resisting the Cheez Its.” Instead, I was grateful I didn’t have orange fingers. Like I keep saying, it’s the small things in life. Not having orange fingers is a small thing that I appreciate. Then again, I’m a wee bit obsessive compulsive about hand cleanliness anyway. I wash my hands a lot, particularly when I cook. Also, I carry around those little anti-bacterial gel thingies from Bath and Body Works. They make these nifty little silicone carriers for them now. I have a lot of them. I can’t decide if I like my hands to be clean or I simply love the smell of the Blueberry and Strawberry gels that I have.

Either way, I have clean hands. Which is a nice thing. I was reading about unclean places and where the most germs could be found. Bathroom doors, shopping cart handles and free sample bowls in stores are the worst. This is why I won’t try those communal bowls of chips/pretzels and dip in stores.

I’m not a germaphobe. I just don’t like germs. Who does, really? They’re one of the more unlikeable things that we have in our world. Those and mosquitoes which aren’t so different from germs, when you think about it.

Anyway, I’m rambling. I ramble a lot. I apologize. My point of my last ramble is another small thing I am grateful for is that Bath and Body works caters to the scent-tramp like me and provides smells for every occasion- licorice at Halloween, gingerbread-mint at Christmas and blueberry for spring and summer. There are plenty of other scents- it’s usually five for $5 so I have quite a selection. I like selection. This is why I have at least four or five different types of shampoo in my shower at a time. My overnight guests have often commented that they enjoy the ‘smorgasboard of shampoo selection’ that I provide in my shower.

It’s fun to have a choice. I can choose my scents, my shampoos, my guilty food-pleasure for the day and whether or not I want to have orange fingers.

Best of all, I can choose if I give in to a bad mood or I make it go away. Whether it’s by singing or a lukewarm Coke zero, a Cadbury egg or some puppy time, there’s always a solution for the grumps.

You just have to find it, that’s all.

Happy Wednesday!

Wrong Side of Bed Days

Today was one of those days where I feel like I got out of bed on the wrong side.

It’s not that I didn’t get enough sleep. The pups and I went to bed at a very decent hour. Granted, we had a 4:00 a.m. bathroom break but we went back to bed right afterwards.

So, I don’t really know why I woke up in a crotchety mood. I just did. It continued through most of the day . At work, I felt disgruntled because I’d found a few good candidates for positions only to have them rejected by my account managers. Meanwhile, my fellow recruiter is swimming in successes and I’m feeling like I’m just sucking at my job lately.

Of course, I’m not really sucking at my job. At least, I don’t think so. It’s hard at the moment because we don’t have any really good job openings. Most of what we have are the same as what most of the other major recruiting firms have and there’s only so many people in Cincinnati who are qualified. Also, since the jobs are still open and no one’s been able to fill them for months, that tells you just about how hard they are to fill.

Every now and again, I get an email at work from someone applying for one of our jobs. Thus, I get quite excited. Then I open the email and discover that a) It’s from someone who clearly just needed to apply for a job for unemployment purposes or b) It’s from a candidate who didn’t read the posting closely to see that it’s a permanent position which requires a U.S. Citizen or Green Card holder.

Thus, I’m feeling cranky. It’s a grey and gloomy day out there which doesn’t help. Stupid me naively believed Mr. Weatherman who promised we’d see some sun today. Since he’s been wrong almost every day for the past few weeks, you’d think I’d have learned that he’s wrong. But no, I listen and plan my day/wardrobe around the type of day he SAYS it will be rather that the type of day it actually is.

I think everyone’s entitled to be in a crotchety mood once in a while. The only stipulation is that they have to acknowledge that they’re a foul-tempered beast. I know exactly when I’m feeling foul-tempered and thus, I warn people. I think that’s only fair. There are people who swear up and down they’re not in a bad mood but proceed to snap at you and bite your head off whenever you talk to them. Thus, they’re in denial about their mood. Knowing is half the battle, as G.I. Joe said.

Also, I find that if I acknowledge I’m in a bad mood, it makes me feel less like I’m in a bad mood. I usually allow myself license to have a bit of a whine and a moan about silly things that annoy me. I usually keep my moaning to myself although I do occasionally unleash it on my dear and patient mother who listens, says, “oh dear” in the appropriate place and sympathizes. This is one of the myriad of reasons I love my mother.

However, sometimes, I just like to complain about things that she wouldn’t really ‘get’. This is when my lucky dogs get to hear their ‘mother’ talking a lot. I know to them, it sounds like this: “Blah blah human sounds blah blah hey, did she just say treat? Blah blah blah. Something that sounded like walk. Blah.”

To me, it may be about something as silly as the TV show “Glee” which for reasons unknown to me, I continue to watch weekly even though it’s gone from being fun and clever to being preachy, non-sensical and completely over-the-top. Or it may be about Facebook which I used to enjoy because it was a good way to check and see if all was well with family/friends and see what they were up to at any given time. Now it seems to have become a series of political statements, links to Facebook apps that “show you what your first ever Facebook status was” or “Click Here to See Who Unfriended You Lately!” or news articles about political statements. It’s not that I don’t care per se but, really, I don’t care. There, I said it. It’s one thing if it’s something personal to my friends- i.e. they have a success. For example, my friend, LadyAero just won a song writing contest. Now that’s the type of thing I WANT to read.

However, I don’t really want to read how Obama screwed up or read cryptic status updates that need to be translated by an “Inside Joke Handbook.” Darn it, Facebook used to be WAY more fun!

Either way, it’s actually quite nice to have something so…unimportant to moan about. I do recognize that I’m quite lucky when all I really have to complain about are superficial things and that my bad mood is just a result of getting out of bed on the wrong side especially when I have friends who are dealing with much more serious stuff. I’m sure if I wanted to find something more serious to moan about, I could but that’s not nearly as therapeutic as unleashing my pent up irritation on Facebook, Glee or Justin Bieber. I still don’t get the fuss with The Bieber but, then again, I’m not ten years old. Perhaps I’m not meant to get it.

Still, even though I got out of the wrong side of bed today, tomorrow is another day. Hopefully things at work will pick up and I won’t be quite so crotchety. Also, perhaps Mr. Weatherman will be right.

Though that... I very much doubt.

Happy Wednesday!

A "Five Things" Kind of Day....

I think I'm in a bad mood today. I can blame it on the fact that I'm tired or I can blame it on the fact that lately, things just haven't been going the way I planned. I suppose I should be glad that life isn't predictable but, at the same time, it's nice when I know I'm going to have a good day or at least have good things happening.

Part of it is work. No matter what I do, I seem to be treading water here. I tried talking to my boss to tell him I wanted more responsibility and he greeted that idea positively. Yet, all of the projects seem to be falling to my co 'team member' who has been here much longer than me and likes to have job security so she never says no.

I like job security too but given that I currently have maybe two projects to do, neither of which could make or break my company, I'm beginning to wonder what's going on. I keep getting told there's a learning curve here and that after a year, I'll be given more work. I thought this was nice at first. Now I realize it's just a little....silly. I'm perfectly capable of handling a heavy workload. I have skills to offer. I'm willing. So...why wait? I mean, ok, so it's their payroll but if you have an employee that has asked for more work, does it really make sense from a business viewpoint to keep that employee with a light workload? It's nice...sure but....it's a for-profit business too. It's just not making much sense to me.

I've realized that being happy in a job affects my life a lot. I don't want it to. I want to go home and put the workday behind me but I've never been able to do that. Instead, I dwell. I hate that I dwell.

If I was writing at the moment, I'd be better. I could convince myself that my true passion is writing and my day job doesn't matter. I'm not writing though. I'm trying but I have to climb out of a very large hole that Amazon.Com, Publishers Weekly and my own self-doubt dug for me. I shouldn't have to but the hole is there and whenever I think I'm ready to clambour out, I look over at my shelf of unpublished manuscripts, the slew of rejection emails I have and just sit back down in that hole. It's quiet there. Quiet and dark and there's no pressure.

I can't sit in that hole forever though. I have to write something again soon. Something with a beginning, a middle and an end. It's not a lofty goal. At least, it didn't use to be.

Sorry I'm a bit of a misery-guts today, as my mother would say. I'm just feeling a lot of inner turmoil and stress. With my parents away, my friends constantly busy and my siblings all occupied with their own lives, the only outlet I have at the moment is in the form of a long, brown dachshund who is good company but doesn't provide much comfort unless I'm holding something edible in my hand. I keep hoping he'll have one of those "Marley and Me" moments where he'll sense I'm having a cruddy day and just sit with me but Sausage is...a little dense. He doesn't get it.

Yet I'm starting to enjoy having him around. He's starting to get used to being around too, I think. I only have two days left with him before I can take him back to his real home. I will miss having him around for the company though leaving home alone in his crate is hard. I hate doing that to him but it's for both of our own goods. My torn carpet is evidence of that.

On days like this I have a little tradition. I remind myself that my life is pretty good compared to most and to prove it, I make myself name five things that I love in my life or for which I am grateful, not including family because that's just a given. Today's top five are: The fact that I'm able to buy a new house, 2) That I'm getting to experience springtime in the Midwest. 3) That I do have a passion for writing even when I'm in a dull spot. 4) My nice Roxy flip-flops that my friend gave me for Christmas because they're comfy and don't make that flip-flop sound. 5) For "Iron Chef America" and "True Blood" for giving me something to enjoy watching during the slow summer TV months.

I forgot to mention that I allow myself to be random in my 'five things'. I could probably come up with a hundred more but those are today's. They remind me that life is never as dark as it seems and that there's always bright spots that make it just that little cheerier, even in the form of flip-flops.

Happy Thursday.