Life

I would summarize the past few months as mostly bad. And it continues to amaze me at how bad it continues to be. Did I walk under a ladder at some point, dooming me to bad luck? 

I had diarrhea for 3 months. I had to go to lots of doctors and take lots of medicines, trying to figure out what it was. They think it was a parasite. I'm better now, but still paying for it. I mean with literal money, not physically. Shortly after I was better, I got a cold for about a week and a half. Lots of congestion, had to use a whole box of kleenex a day type of thing. I was glad it didn't develop into a cough though. I was only better for a week, when I started getting a sore throat yesterday!! And it's hurt all day today!! :-( Physically I've not been fantastic. 

My back left window broke two weeks ago. I put it down because I heard a bug in my car as I drove, and when I put it down there was an awful crunching noise, and it wouldn't go back up. The mechanic got it up most of the way for me to put a trash bag to cover it, and I had about 6 days of driving it around until the piece came in and we had time to go drop off my car. More money. 

At work it's been really busy and stressful. People have been jerks - getting really angry at us for stupid reasons and reasons out of our control. A lot of things keep breaking, like the ice machine, the sticker machine, the bar, and more. Having it broken and then having someone fix it slows us down. We also have a lot of new people which slows us down. Yesterday we were slammed and couldn't keep up, and the Starbucks health inspector showed up, with one of the girls working with us being brand new, and a second one that came in shortly after was also brand new. We only failed by two points. We all had to keep washing our hands while she was there, and my hands were already REALLY dry, so it made it worse. Like cracking and almost bleeding kind of thing. I was more mad that I had to wash my hands so many times than us "failing" because 87 isn't bad. Coworkers have been lazy or annoying and I have lost my temper a few times with some of them. 

There's been a few bad health things going on in my family, from an injured shoulder to heart problems. 

But I want to still talk about the good things, because they are there too. I went to Charleston in June and it was great. I have gotten a lot of great photography jobs recently, and it's extra money (to cover the crazy stuff going on) as well as fun. I had lunch on Sunday with some friends who used to live here but now live in Virginia and were visiting for the weekend. I've had lunch, dinner, and coffee with other friends over the past few months too. I got to have dinner in July with a few of my girl friends from high school to celebrate our 10 years out of high school, and one of those had a baby shower the next day that I got to go to. I went to a game night last month to play Settlers of Catan. I'm on the last season of The Office which I'm watching for the first time and my brother is the one paying for Netflix and lets me watch his. 

When I think that my life is uneventful, I write about all these things and remember that it isn't. It wears me out emotionally and/or physically sometimes! 

Wandering

Sometimes my mind just wanders. Usually it wanders back to good times, and sort of replays them in my head. Sometimes I remember conversations I've had that made me laugh, and I laugh again in the present. Yesterday I thought back to this...

I was on a leadership retreat at a lake house in Alabama, in November of last year. 10 months ago. It was late on Saturday night, and some people had already gone to bed, some people had fallen asleep in chairs and on sofas in the living room, and some people were playing a board game. We were all in pajamas, and pretty much ready for bed. But a few of us were still awake. The living room was dark, but there was still light coming from around the fireplace which was in the middle of the room, from where they were playing the board game. The few of us still awake in the living room talked about dreams we've had, crazy stories, scary stories that happened to us, and more. It was this constant flow of conversations and stories. It went on for like about two hours, but I'm not really sure of how long we talked, it could have been longer, because I had no concept of time, no concept of having to drive home the next morning, no concept of anything beyond right then. It was just good. We laughed, we learned more about each other, we didn't care what we looked like. The only reason I think it was around two hours is because I had written than down when it happened.

There were other good conversations that weekend on the drive to and from Alabama, at lunch at Chili's on the way there, on the back porch facing the lake, on the dock, around the fire, in the living room the night before when we all went around and said what we liked about each person. 

Sometimes it's just nice to think about good times.