First Baseball game of the season

Went to an exhibition game tonight - first baseball game in a long time.

The yankee fans were all over the place and loud.

We left after 4 innings - the Diamondbacks were ahead 3 to 2. It's so hard to go to a game on a work night. I'm exhausted, but hate to leave early.

Luis Gonzalez and Craig Counsel played tonight - nice to see a couple of my old favorites on the field. There were only a couple of other players that I even recognized - sure sign it's been too long since I've been to a game.

Sick days

Man, I have been sick for 4 or 5 days now. Started out as a head cold, but when I saw the doc yesterday, he said I have bronchitis. Gave me an Rx for some antibiotics.

Rude shock at the docs, since they didn't recognise my new health plans' way of claims, they charged me full price - cash - they dont' take debit or credit! Holy crap! I had to run to the bank and withdraw $100. Pissed me off royally. My first time at this doc, I liked him, but the hassle of filing claims with my insurance may not be worth it.

Good news at the pharmacy, no copay for my antibiotic. So, all in all - not too bad. Last year on United Health, I had a deductible for my medications and I would have had to pay full price for this one.

I have been so sick that I have been off work for 3 days. Normally if I am off work, I am spinning or knitting or reading. Nope! too sick to do any of those things. Just laying on the couch dozing in and out with bad daytime tv on.

You would think with over 150 channels to choose from, I could find a couple of movies to pass the time, but evidently not.

Long day at work

Man, yesterday was a monster! We had a project going live last night and had to stay late to test it. It was cool, cause we came in later. The project was not scheduled to be ready to test until 7:45 and we knew it was going to take a couple of hours for the testing itself.

We started testing at a little before 8 and it failed immediately on every point. Holy Crap!

We had tested this thoroughly in the test environment earlier in the week and all the defects had been fixed and re-tested - what in the world is the freaking problem.

We called the vendor and fiddled with it until 9 pm and then had to back out the changes because there was no way to get it resolved last night.

So, I don't know when we will attempt it again - but not tonight.

The fact is that I love my job and this would have been just a little annoyance but for the fact that I had to miss the American Idol results show.

Dang it, I didn't tape it either!

Spinning with the littles

I taught two of my nieces to spin on a hand spindle last summer and they quickly progressed to spinning wheels. I ended up buying another couple of spinning wheels in order to be able to use one for my own projects.

Maegan is now 8 and Sarah is 10 (collectively known as "the littles")and they are at my house almost every weekend. Their mother Juanita thought we looked like we were having fun so she learned to spin too.

There are times when all 4 of us are set up in the living room spinning away. I wish I had a picture of that.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the Alpaca show held east of town. One of the guilds I belong to asked for volunteers to set up their spinning wheels and demonstrate. The littles and I brought 3 wheels and some knitting. We were not able to bring the wheel that Maegan normally spins on, the wheel that she tried to use was not working well for her so she ended up finger knitting most of the time and socializing.

Sarah, on the other hand, was doing well and seemed very comfortable in the public setting - answering questions and filling her bobbin up. When I first talked to them about going, they were both hesitant about people talking to them, asking them questions and if they thought they could explain it. But they both did so well.

We had great fun. I'm going to go look for pictures of them spinning. I know I have a couple somewhere.

How I became a person who works

When I first came to Phoenix, I had not worked in 7 or 8 years. I felt like I didn't remember how to do anything that someone would pay me for.

I took a small telemarketing job that was very easy. It paid $5 an hour - 6 hours a day - 6 days a week. No benefits, no vacation, no sick time. Come in and answer the phone, read the script from the wall and then take the next call. Even I could do that. And I did. One thing that worked for me was to just show up. If I was there, I could do that one simple thing.

It was hard to do that at first. I had the fear that I was not going to be able to perform the simple things asked of me, so I attempted to sabotage my effort and just not go to work. Luckily I lived with my sister and her child. I got into a routine every day that included going to work - she drove me and it was very hard to come up with a reason to stay home. Here she was, 15 years younger than I, working nights and supporting herself, her child, our aunt and me. The least I could do was go to my little job.

That paid off. Going to work every day gave me a sense of accomplishment and that simple job soon gave way to more complex tasks. In a matter of less than 2 years, I was the general manager of the whole dang thing.

That was 12 years ago and now I have an amazing job. I work for a company that rewards effort. I do something that makes me feel that I am making a difference in people's lives. And I get paid a good wage for what I do. What more could you want from a job?

I have a new guy working with me on my project and I am so pleased that he is learning quickly. He's dependable and thorough. This means that soon (6 months or so) I may be able to turn the whole project over to him and move on to something new and exciting.

The idea of working on a different project is scary for me. The insecurity of not being sure that I can learn a new skill quickly enough to be good at what I do, sometimes almost cripples me. I try to trust that the man I work for knows more than I do about my ability to learn and grow. I am still afraid of failure, especially public failure.

But I show up. And that works for now.....