the many facets of donna

It sure is a beautiful black night, isn’t it?

10 Feb 2012 1 Comment

by Donna in Journaling, Personal notes Tags: askville, dog, fired from a job, journal, journaling, just be yourself, knock on wood, le pen, Ning, o clock, sick as a dog, vomit, washi tape, wood, woodchuck, You're fired!

I’ve been sleeping so much since I’ve been sick with the flu and then I wake up at bedtime.  I hate that.  I want to be awake when the sun in shining and the birds are frozen in their nests.   Actually, it’s warmed up a bit here is balmy Fairbanks, Alaska.  It is currently 17 degrees F at 11 o’clock at night.  I bet it was a beautiful sunny day – too bad I was sleeping.  I still would like to be awake when my family is.

Well I think – maybe – I really hate to say it out loud but this is text actually…. I think I might be getting better – Knock on wood… wait, is that real wood or veneered plastic?  I better go outside and knock on my house… oh, wait, the siding is vinyl dang.  My doors are probably fiber fill…. I guess I better just knock on my head.  I think it’s time for a new saying…. like maybe, “knock on plastic.”

I did look up the origin of “Sick as a Dog”.  It doesn’t paint a very pretty picture.  I’ll just use a quote that I liked from Askville by Amazon.

“Sick as a dog,” which means “extremely sick” and dates back to at least the 17th century, is also not so much negative as it is simply descriptive. Anyone who knows dogs knows that while they can and often will eat absolutely anything, on those occasions when their diet disagrees with them the results can be quite dramatic. And while Americans may consider themselves “sick” when they have a bad cold, in Britain that would be called “feeling ill.” “Being sick” in Britain usually means “to vomit.”

So to really appreciate the original sense of “sick as a dog,” imagine yourself seated in the parlor having tea with the Vicar on a lovely Sunday afternoon, when Fido staggers in from a meal of sun-dried woodchuck and expresses his unease all over your heirloom oriental carpet. It’s actually rather amazing that goldfish aren’t more popular.

Okay, so that answers that question.  I guess since I am so careful about what my dog eats she doesn’t get sick like that.  I don’t just let her run loose and eat whatever she finds… and she would.  Dead, rotting bird… sure NOM NOM.  Little Johnny’s PB&J studded with pea gravel…. yum.  She’s a beagle so her nose gets her into trouble.  She’s older so the critters that move are too fast for her and she ends up looking for stuff on the ground.

Anyway, I did get a little creative again last night.  I did lesson 2 in the Soar journal.  I even used a little bit of my new Washi tape I ordered from Cute Tape.  That stuff is a little bit too expensive I think.  I spent $20 on 3 rolls (the shipping was minimal) and what I got was 3 tiny rolls.  The green roll looks bigger but it’s just that the cardboard ring in the middle is bigger and the tape is also on a white backing so that takes up a lot of room too.  I guess I was thinking of a roll of masking tape.  These are more like the size of a roll of scotch tape you get in the chincy little dispensers.  The tape isn’t like masking tape though.  I believe it is actually fabric.  I couldn’t tear it.  I just distorted the design.  I had to give up on my dream of being like Hulk Hogan and get out the scissors.

Anyway, for lesson 2 in my SOAR journal I was to write about a difficult situation that I rose up from.  I wrote about the time I got fired.  It was the only time I ever got fired and other than this job I never even got a negative review.  It was awful really.  I did learn a valuable lesson though.  I’ve always had the mindset that quitting was admitting defeat.  My grandmother always told me to never ever quit – You fight until you win.  In this case I learned that some situations just suck too bad and it’s not worth fighting for.  My boss would come out red-faced, and spitting mad over a misunderstanding.  After explaining he would just walk away with no apology after he scared me to death.  He did have a brain tumor but instead of stepping down until he had surgery and recovered he just kept working.  Sometimes he would be bleeding from his surgical site that wasn’t healing properly and once blood actually dripped on my desk.  He wasn’t himself and made some poor decisions in my opinion.  I knew the situation was bad and I was quietly looking for another job but I wasn’t willing to give up something I wanted so badly that I applied for the job 7 times before I got it.  I didn’t want to look like a failure after that.  The last review I got was great and said I was doing a wonderful job.  Next thing I know I’m called into the office to get the ax.  I was very upset but it ended up being a blessing in disguise.  I went back to school and got a job as a CNA.  Another thing I learned is that I can pick my employer.  I began to go to interviews with a different mindset.  I went into each interview to try to decide if they were the right employer for me.  I also volunteered there first.  I volunteered in several areas of the hospital before I decided on where I wanted to work.   I will never again work for a place that is so poorly managed.

So, have you ever had a situation that seemed like the end of the world at the time but you ended up rising from the ashes to something better?

Here is another page I did using some of the graphics from the class printed in black and white. My color ink is out but I finally figured out how to get it to print in black. That used to be so easy. Just click the box that said “black ink only” but now that isn’t there. I tried to choose greyscale but it was still using the color ink which is virtually non-existant. That must have changed when my husband upgraded my computer to Windows 7. Anyway, I used my red le pen to add some color. I love my le pens.

If you are interested in the SOAR journal you can always sign up at any time.  I started at the beginning of February.  You  just need to become a member of “Just be Yourself” on the Ning Network and than you can sign up for the free class.   Anita gives great feedback and she has helped me a lot with some of my more troubling issues.  I’ve exchanged emails with her and she always seems to have just the right words at the right time.

Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.
— Marsha Norman