I was the height of lazyness today! I well deserved day off. And my greatest accomplishment for today? Reading an entire book in one day! No little book either. It was the new Laurell K. Hamilton book Danse Macabre. Good. Not her best, but good. The usual complaints I have had after finishing her more recent books. Too much sex, not enough zombie raising! It was a great lazy way to spend my day off, though. I didn't get out of my pajamas all day!

Today I was offered the teller supervisor position at the Bay Hills branch. I have been arguing with myself over whether or not to take this position since I interviewed last week. I guess I am still fighting with myself but I am going to take it. It just seems silly not to. Good pay raise and all that. Today I also went out with Jamie and her family for her 30th birthday! Woo hoo! Yay Jamie! We went to the Fuji Steak House at Waugh Chapel, it was very good. You gotta love japanese steak houses! Oh, so that made 2 birthdays in a row going to japanese steak houses! Heck yes! Who's next?

Is it possible that my mood is improving because of all this rain? People are starting to complain. The customers, friends, family. Everyone says they have had enough. I am enjoying it. These insane tropical downpours that seem to come out of nowhere, rain like mad for 20 minutes then move on. Sometimes they last even longer, especially when the storms are training right over the same spot. Seems like one never-ending storm. Thunderstorms on and off for the past few days, what's not to like? Of course, if I lived next to one of the flooded rivers and my house was in danger, or already underwater, I would not be feeling this way at all. But I can't help but say, I am enjoying all this rain.

Snuggling on the sofa with my loveable, huggable, great big fat Silly cat. Sigh. Yeah, that was really nice. Dog people just don't understand exactly how wonderful, soothing, and comforting the sound of a purr is in your ear. And that your cat makes this amazing, mysterious sound just because of you!

Today while I was working at the Wheel, I sat outside smoking and reading like I always do when I work there. It has been storming on and off all day. I have a bad habit of cheering these storms on. When I see one looming off in the distance, I do a little happy dance and chant to myself "Come on, baby!" So I was reading, smoking and cheering the afternoon away. In one of these breaks between waves of rain, the sun peeked it's way from behind the clouds. It never quite came out all the way. I stepped from underneath the over hang and into the sun and suddenly I felt something. Soft and light. Wet and cool. Almost like a mist of the lightest kisses. It was rain, to be sure. But it felt lovely. Refreshing. Reminded me of Hawaii, when the same thing happened to my mom and I as we lay on the beach. Much nicer than the pouring down rain!

Stormy day

Today is my Pop Pop's 90th birthday party! Can you imagine? 90? Nathan and Jess came down and my Uncle Chuck who I barely ever see. Matt and Marsha, Aunt Barb, my mom and brother, and lots of other friends of my grandparents. It was a lovely party. I had the grilled salmon, I love salmon! The cake was excellent, Matt made it. Lots of fresh fruit on it. Then as the party was wrapping up, the sky opened up. Rain poured down harder than I have seen it in a long time. Crazy lightning and thunder. So as I drove home from Bel Air, I may have done a little storm chasing! Hee hee hee! I was coming down Rt. 7, Philadelphia Rd just outside of White Marsh when I saw some great clouds and lots of lightning. I tried to get some pics of the lightning but the shutter(or whatever you want to call it) on the digital camera is just too slow! But I got some pretty clouds nonetheless.
90th Birthday

That was how I felt when I left work today. Free! Just like the bird in this picture, soaring through a clear blue sky. What a crappy day. But I won't go into it, staying positive. It truly was like freedom to step out of the building, leaving everything behind for a Friday evening and a Saturday off. Windows down and Angels and Airwaves cranked up, I avoided a back up and flew up the highway. Beautiful!
Free!

We were super busy today at work. And there are somedays, like today, that I really like it. A steady stream of stuff to do all day and I got it all done. A sense of accomplishment. And, even better, I got a referral today! I have been awful at referrals lately and it reflects poorly on me, especially in my yearly review. Hopefully this is a break in the long dry spell-of referrals at work. God knows there are other dry spells that show no signs of letting up!

I wrote 2 pages tonight! I haven't worked on the story in ages and I finally sat down and said to myself you gotta write something, it doesn't matter what it is. So 2 pages. Now I just have to do it more often. My ideal would be everyday but at this point I have been so bad about it I will settle for once a week! There was a really nice moment while I was sitting on my bed writing. I looked out my window at the sky. It was just past sunset, when the sky is just a line of gold, orange and pink at the horizon and reflecting on the clouds. Directly up, the sky turns this fantastic shade of blue as night approaches from the east. I can't accurately describe this blue. It is so deep and vibrant. It is my favorite color. I just laid there on my bed, my head resting on the window sill and staring out the window as the colors faded from the sky. Lovely.

Monday Monday. I had an interview today for a new position at work. New branch, new job. Teller supervisor. The interview went well, as far as I could tell. Hopefully I will hear something by the end of the week. On the drive home from the interview, it thunderstormed like crazy. That was nice. Once I was home, I sat on the front porch and talked on the phone to Willow while it stormed to the south of me. It was neat, thunder and lightning but no rain. We discussed plans to go to Denver and see the Dalai Lama. Anybody what to come with us? It's gonna be awesome!

No class tonight. Instead I meditated on my own, which it had been ages since I have done that. Really managed to find the peace and center and grounding. My english is not so hot tonight! :P It felt good. I was reading an article in a Yoga magazine about dharma and finding your true path. Very good article. I think I need to read it again to get it to set in. It was about making choices and doing what is best for your dharma. Interesting. What would Yoda do? That was what reading that article made me ask myself.

Shawn, Pete, Jess and I went to the movies tonight to see Nacho Libre. It was really funny and silly, of course. But that wasn't so much the highlight of my day. Instead of wearing the usual shorts and sloppy tshirt, I decided to dress a little bit more nicely. Not dressy, per se. Little bit of lipstick, hair nicely done and smooth. A great bra that enhances the girls, low cut top. I looked good, and I felt good. And it was certainly fun getting noticed by the guys at 7-11. I actually got elevator eyed. Cool. Yeah, that felt good. And Jess complimented me, too. It felt good to be noticed again, that hadn't happened in the longest time. And it also reminds me that I need to compliment others more often, tell them that they look good. It really does wonders for you!

I need to put more pictures up here. That has nothing to do with today, just an observation.
Today one of my tellers, Joanna, left the bank. She and her husband are moving up to Long Island. It is actually a sad day, I am going to miss her so much. For this blog I am celebrating my friend and co-worker, Joanna. She was my right hand. She was the most helpful, nice, quick learning person I have ever worked with. If I needed anything, she was there to help me. We would just sit and talk some days, as we worked. We helped each other through difficult times with our manager, kept each other smiling and making sure the other was still going to come to work the next day. She was my back up and on days when she was off, it always made my day more difficult. She was hands down, the best co-worker I have ever had. And even more important, Joanna was a beautiful person inside and out. She would do anything for anyone. I am going to miss her!

A long Thursday working from 8:30 until 6:30. Yuck. A good thing was that it didn't take me very long to close so I was out of there by 6:05. That is one of the few good things about our new computer system at work, closing is quicker. I got some errands done after work and that was good. And the best of all was I went to bed at 10pm. I can't tell you the last time that happened and I actually like getting to bed early now. I don't know when that happened. I still consider myself a night owl, though, because given the opportunity I will stay up all night. I just don't have the chance to any more, I always have to work the next day!

I think I am still in my post-concert high. Listening to NIN all day, looking at pics of the concert online. Oh yeah, Pete told me how to change bitmap to jpeg so later I shall add that pic of Trent to the previous blog. Yes, I love little obsessions like this. It will pass soon enough, a couple of days, and I will be back to normal. I do this frequently, whenever I discover something new or find something I really like. Like after I saw X-Men, the first movie, I had to go back and read all of the old X-Men comics and read every article about Hugh Jackman. God knows I do it with Star Wars and I did it with Stargate SG-1 when I first started watching it. I end up dreaming about whatever it is, which I did Tuesday night after that concert. Cool dreams. A little healthy, friendly obsession can't hurt right?

So I was trying really hard to get a good picture of Trent to show you all my happy moments from tonight but they are all bitmap images instead of jpegs and due to technical difficulties I can't get them on here! Damnit! I really lamented the loss of Trent's long hair when Mary first told me. I love long hair on guys. But Trent buzzed it all off. Gone is the dyed black hair, skinny, makeup, pale skin goth boy. He has been replaced by a muscular, short haired man that will kick your ass! Did I mention the glory of leather pants? Sweet zombie jesus. Once upon a time, I doubted a past co-worker at the Wall who said that Trent was hot. I was like Trent Reznor? Really? I take it back. And then to start the night off, the voice of my soul, Peter Murphy in spectacular theatrical form. And to top the night off-Trent sang Bela Legosi's Dead! Granted I didn't hear the live performance, that was reserved for those lucky bastards that won tickets from DC101. I heard it on the radio and it was awesome! Undead undead undead! Hell yes! Goth guys are hot! Enough panting over the leather pants, if you are interested (Mary) I suggest you go read Jess' blog on myspace. She sums it all up very well. Uh, excuse me Mr. Reznor, I bet after all that running around on stage sweating and throwing bottles of water all over yourself, your pants are really tight, and don't you think you need a hand getting those off?
By the way, I was at the Bauhaus and Nine Inch Nails concert last night and it rocked! We had 5th row and I so wanted to be in the pit busting heads! Unbelievable energy!

Wonder of wonders, I had a good day at work today. My supervisor was in a good mood, my tellers all behaved themselves and the little things that always seemed to go wrong the past 2 weeks, did not happen today. For the first time in at least 2 weeks, I left on time and in a good mood. We had talked and laughed and just generally had a good day. How nice! Then I came home to an empty quiet house. At first I was disappointed, my sister and my nephews are visiting, but I took advantage of it. My sister doesn't like the boys to watch anything on TV remotely violent. So I don't get to watch any of my shows, except for the weather channel. So I vegetated on the sofa, as I usually do on Mondays, and watched x-files, stargate, and 2 episodes of Friends before ending my 3 hour TV binge. And that felt so good because I hadn't done that either in about 3 weeks, ever since everything went crazy at work and my dad got real sick.

I slept in. Oh joy! Rapture! Sleeping in! But that wasn't the best part of the day. That was spending about 3 hours hanging out with my dad. He has improved so much from last week. We talked about Star Wars, football and the Ravens signing McNair, the O's, work, and other random stuff. After a week of worry, what a relief to have a normal conversation. He had physical therapy while I was there, too, and it was good to see him get up and walk to the nurses station. It wasn't long after the walk that I left, exercise like that really tires him out so I knew he would really like to sleep. It felt really good to spend that time with him.

Willow and I had an excellent full moon ritual tonight. We kept it simple and just focused on a healing for my dad. I felt focused and clear-headed for the first time in a while. It felt very good, the whole thing. We also had a great discussion about how the religions relate to the chakras and how it is actually a good thing to move away Wicca towards the higher religions and chakras. It was a good, deep, real discussion. And it felt so good doing something to help my dad.

I seem to have lost focus of this blog. I didn't mean to. I got overwhelmed and was struggling to keep myself above water most of the week. My dad took a big turn for the worse on Monday and that was a big shock. I was spending all of my free time at the hospital. Then my sister and the boys came up, because of my dad, and so they have been consumming time. And work has just been nuts everyday as I try to get back into a routine. These new computers have really screwed everything up. Plus I lost 2 tellers which makes me short-handed. And another situation that I don't care to go into presented itself on Tuesday/Wednesday to screw up my social life on top of everything else.
It is Saturday, a new day and almost a new week. My dad has made another turn, for the better. He is recognizing everyone again, eating, and is out of restraints. I am having a great time with my sister and my nephews. There is nothing like having two little boys fighting over who gets to play monster with Aunt Lori and having Corey admonish me when I didn't get home from work when I said I would. Work is getting better. I am getting a hang of the new system and a routine is starting to fall into place. We have hired one new teller and are interviewing to get 2 more. Oh yeah, and I was sick but I went to the doctor and got antibiotics. The social situation seems to be resolved. I am ready once again to focus on the positive in my day and life. I will start again, now that I have had a week off, and re-committ myself to this.

I have a teller station again at work! I am so very pleased to have my own desk again. For about 4 months, I did not have one. We had too many tellers and not enough places for them to have a permanent station. Friday was the last day for 2 of my tellers so now I have my own desk. This morning I took in pictures and stuff to decorate it with. I like doing that alot. Making the space mine. I always used to sit at everyone else's stations and look at their stuff-pics of their kids, boyfriends, girlfriends. Whatever. Not anymore. Now I look at a beautiful tree in Vermont changing colors against a glorious autumn blue sky. A view to temporarily take me away from where I am everyday.
Another event of importance today. I was sitting on the front porch this evening, the sun had just set. When out of the corner of my eye, I noticed arising from the cool damp grass-lightning bugs! Like little pieces of magic. I love lightning bugs, they are magical and good! And tonight was the first evening of this summer that I had the pleasure of watching them begin their nightly sojourn.

When Pat, my teacher, first mentioned what we would be doing in class tonight, I got a little nervous. In groups, we would be creating our own religions. I am not sure why it filled me with dread at first. That is something I am still looking into. I must say, I had an enjoyable time doing it. Of course, my religion leaned towards something like the Jedi. I just can't help it! But it truly did help me figure out exactly what I believe and what I think is just a bunch of hooey that I don't want to be associated with whatsoever. And why some of those hooey beliefs might be in place, despite the fact that I don't agree with them. When it comes to controlling the masses, sometimes you do have to put the fear of god into them. But I also hope that humans evolve enough that those archaic beliefs can be put to rest and no one need fear they will spend eternity burning in hell with demons torturing them. Does anyone even truly believe that anymore?

Work has been unbelievable this week. Much too hard. New computer systems are a gigantic pain. I must stay optimistic! It is Friday and I am home. I survived, I found my difference, I did my job well despite bad circumstances. My tellers are doing well with the new system and that reflects well on me. I am so glad to be home, where it is quiet and I can relax and take tylenol and my headache will go away. Watch some Stargate, read my book, chill, and go to bed early!

Today is Shawn's birthday! Happy Birthday Shawn! After another crazy day at work, I went out to dinner with Shawn, Pete, Jess and Allie. Cheers to my friends! I like spending evenings with my friends. I was a little sad to look around the table and notice so many faces missing but it just makes me cherish the ones that are still here all the more. We had a great dinner at Kyoto in Severna Park with lots of good food and conversation and crazy hibatchi style cooking. To top it all off, it thunderstormed like mad outside! It looked like the apocalypse was approaching, the clouds were so black. The power flickered a few times but never quite went out, which would have been weird in the restaurant. Hope you had a good one, Shawn!