Getting back on track

I’m going to go ahead and blame it on summer. What is it about summer that makes you toss schedules and plans out the window? It’s like the minute the flip-flops and beach towels come out (which for me was, um, in April, I think. But you know what I mean) silly things like committing to keep a blog updated on a regular basis get dropped like they’re hot.

Ahem. So, now that September is about, eh, 48 hours away, I am hearby committing once more to keep this bloggy thing updated. It’s not like I haven’t had things that I’ve thought, “Ooh, must blog about that!” I have. But for some reason, they didn’t make it to here. I even have some drafts that I’ve started but not finished. I’ll get there; I always do!

So, here’s what’s been happening with moi:

1. I’ve been biking. A LOT. On Saturday, I biked about 41 miles total. Whew. I was dead tired and feeling a little ill yesterday – perhaps I might have overdone it and gotten a bit dehydrated. Still, I was pretty impressed with the fact that I did 41 miles! It’s been a warm summer, and hopefully it will be a warm fall, so I should be able to get lots more rides in before that Indiana winter slides in.

2. I’ve been reading. A LOT. I go through phases, I think. Right now, I’m in a voracious reading phase. I’m re-reading a beloved series of books called the Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peters. My mom got me hooked when I was in high school, and it’s been a while since I’ve re-read them. I’m on book 7, and I started two weeks ago. Love these books! Think murder mystery meets Egyptology and they have a baby around 1890.

3. Oh yes, I’ve been working and stuff, too. Nothing too crazy happening there. Like most nonprofits, we continue to adjust to a new financial situation. Like home ownership and mortgages, the way nonprofts function will be changed forever from now on, I think. We just have to figure out how to make it work. God is not done with WGM yet!

4. Speaking of God, I’ve been using a new devotional book called In Plain Sight: Seeing God’s Signature Throughout Creation by Charles Gordon. I’m using this as a devotional for the same reason I often tune into Science Friday on NPR every once in a while on Friday afternoons: my knowledge about science is not very large, nor do I have much of an inclination to expand it. But I recognize that it’s an important field, one that is good to delve into. And this devo is amazingly fascinating – the pictures are incredible! The basic premise is that God’s signature can be seen in diverse areas of creation – the iris of an eye looks very much like a gold molecule that’s been put through a particle accelerator, a brain cell carries a striking resemblance to an oak tree, and a spiral galaxy looks just like a hurricane. Each day, there’s a similarity like these intertwined with a biblical truth.

There! Hopefully now I will be once more a faithful blogger.

How are YOU?

A Walk-In Rant

Twice in the last two days, when I have gone into two fast-food places (McDonalds and Starbucks), I’ve been frankly puzzled with the service I’ve gotten, and I’ve wondered if it’s a trend.

Both times, there were plenty of employees rushing around doing their respective things. Both times, I was the only one in line at the in-store cash register, and both times, I had to wait an (what I thought was) inordinate amount of time to 1)get someone to take my order and 2) give me my darn stuff.

They were too busy seeing to the needs of people in the drive-thru. After I’d ordered at McDonald’s, I heard a customer order two smoothies (I ordered one), and actually saw the workers hand over that person’s drinks before I was given mine.

Are companies forgetting that people who walk into their restaurants deserve good service, too? Are they so focused on getting that time down from when a customer orders their food to when they drive by the pay and pick it up that they’ve forgotten that people who are inside the restaurant matter?

I posed the question to my lunch buddies at work today, and they also agreed that this was a common event. One co-worker even said that she had recently walked out of a restaurant  recently for that reason.

My driver-side car window doesn’t work, so I tend to go in a fast-food place rather than use the drive-thru because I feel awfully ghetto when I have to actually open my door to complete the transaction. So, I tend to see this kind of behavior a lot. And being the activist I am (I’ve sent complaint letters or called David’s Bridal, Kerasotes, Sprint, Axe, Amazon, Olive Garden, and more to bully – er - encourage them to get their act together), I’m trying to figure out how to make it better. I’m thinking a blistering email to CEO’s of major chains I frequent.

A vocal customer tends to get their way. I wonder if the typical drive-thru customer is more likely to complain about a long wait than a walk-in customer. A drive-thru customer is in their vehicle, their domain, and I bet that makes them have fewer inhibitions about telling off an employee. A walk-in, on the other hand, is in the restaurant’s domain. I contented myself at McDonald’s with a few incredulous glances and an annoyed tapping of my foot.

How to fix this? Have you experienced anything like this recently?

Back to Real Life

Now that a major WGM event, holiday time around the 4th, helping my parents move across the country, hanging out with my best friend, and coming down from all that high-ness is over, I guess I am supposed to get back to real life.

But I don’t wanna.

Here’s what I want to do: go live in Europe with my best buddy and her hubby. And I know I shouldn’t hold it against Marion, but there’s nothing here that is remotely like that imaginary life.  It’s not Marion’s fault.

So, here I am, missing my friend, missing a lifestyle I would love, and working on that good ‘ole contentment issue. And I really do love our life in Marion – love my job, the church, our friends here. It’s just…sometimes….especially when I’ve recently hung out with someone who knew me in “the old country” that I feel like wandering into the nearest cornfield (about 50 feet away) and staring into the horizon, with all the places I’ve lived flipping through the slide show of my brain (I’m poetic today) and wondering where God will take us next.

And that’s when that quote from Up pops in my mind: “Thanks for the adventure! Now go have a new one!”

Okay, silly cartoon man. I will.

Obsessions

Last week, Haiti was dominant in my mind. I was in meetings, debriefings, writing press releases left and right, scouring the news, staying in contact with other non-profits, and praying for the victims. It was heartbreaking. Even though I was so busy with it all, I knew it wasn’t going to help those who needed it the most.  And I know that in the coming weeks and months, it will be more of the same. I knew for my sanity’s sake, I needed a mental break this weekend.

But try as I did, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I would feel guilty when I took a break from emailing news links to work out. I would check Facebook constantly, wondering if Paul landed in Haiti OK.

So I think my brain shut off for me, or at least latched on to a few very, VERY random obsessions that popped up this weekend, and gave me the mental break I needed. Here’s what happened:

1. While browsing in my local used book store, the Paperback Peddler, I found a jigsaw puzzle depicting American aviation history. I had a flash of nostalgia for my grandfather, who was a flight instructor during WWII, and brought it home. (I paid for it first) In the last two days, I have probably spent about four hours working on that dang thing.

2. I also picked up a book called Escape, by Carolyn Jessop, detailing her escape from a polygamous Mormon sect, the FLDS. I started reading at about 1:00 on Saturday, and didn’t put it down until I’d finished it at 6:30. It was a very gripping story, but still, reading for over five hours straight is a lot, even for me.

3. And in my husband’s words, “No one obsesses like you.”  I started researching the people in the book on Wikipedia and watching clips on YouTube of the FLDS.  One of the best was this one – it’s long, but it talks about the spiritual journey former fundamentalists have made.

4. My brain aparently enjoyed Saturday, because today I picked up another book that I’d been reading off and on, Stardust, and finished it, too. I saw the movie a few years ago, and I actually think I like both the book and the movie equally. Which is pretty rare.

So to sum up, to get my mind off Haiti, my subconscious decided to delve into aviation history in puzzle form, polygamy in the US, and an adult fairy tale. So, so weird. I guess my advice is if you find your mind taking you down a very odd path – and you KNOW you need the break – just enjoy it!

Feeling stuck? Go run.

Today, I was feeling extremely uncreative and uninspired. Which is bad, because my main tasks for the day were writing and coming up with theme ideas for future issues of The Call. But the creative cells weren’t connecting, and I found myself (ugh, I can’t believe I was wasting time doing this) googling album art to add to some of my mp3′s that didn’t have pictures. Yeah, I know.

I decided, screw it, I’m going to work out. (I was at Taylor, having had lunch with Steve and his geeks) After I’d changed into my workout gear, I rifled through my bag to find my iPod, and realized to my dismay that I’d left my headphones at home. What was I going to do? How was I going to stay motivated to power through? It’s so boring to run without music! Darnitdarnitdarnitdarnit.

But I decided I might as well work out since I was there and all ready. (My friend Sara told me that staff spouses can use the female staff/faculty changing room, which is a huge improvement from changing in the bathroom!) As I started up on the treadmill, I started thinking, “Okay, I’ve got about 25 minutes here of just walking/jogging. What can my mind do to stay occupied?” The TV was on something sports-related (boo) and there were show-offie boys grunting while lifting weights behind me (double boo). So I started thinking about the projects I’m working on, and my mind jumped around a bit with different ideas for stories. And then I grabbed onto an idea, and totally came up with some theme and story ideas for The Call. I fleshed it out a bit, and repeated it in my mind so I wouldn’t forget. (How many times have you thought of an AWESOME idea, only to forget it?

And then when I got home, I typed up my ideas to hang onto for a planning meeting next week. And I feel like I am no longer in my noncreative funk. Booyah.

So, children, the moral to the story is that working out does more than whip your patootie into shape. And it really does help blast away those fuzzy “stuck” feelings. Now the secret is to remember this when I don’t feel at all like exercising! And maybe I’ll just run without the iPod every once in a while, just in case something else awesome sparks…