Mishaps and other haps

This week I am on vacation, my parents are visiting from Florida, and we’ve been having a good time visiting and taking little trips around town.  This morning I had breakfast with them, then we headed to the Henry Vilas Zoo for a few hours.  We went downtown for lunch to try out Five Guys, a relatively new fast food addition to State Street.  This place makes a good burger.  I will be back and will probably take Michael along next time (he had to work this week, so is only around in the evening).

We stopped by the library to pick up a couple of books I had reserved and grabbed some coffee.  Then we decided to go see Toy Story 3. We all enjoyed the movie– I think it does credit to the Toy Story franchise.

Mom and Dad brought us a couple of boxes of peaches that they picked up when they drove through Alabama.  This is a yearly (or almost yearly) tradition that started when they first visited me after my move to Wisconsin.  It’s hard to reliably find terrific peaches here and the best tasting ones aren’t available in Wisconsin until well into July (they can be iffy, as well).  I honestly hadn’t thought about peaches yet this year, so they were a surprise!  I’ll be a little sad when Mom and Dad decide to fly up, rather than drive, because that will be the end of the peaches (but it will also allow them to spend more time visiting us, so the trade off is good).

Peaches don’t stay perfectly ripe for too long, so I have been at work eating them, converting them into dessert, and freezing them.  I diced up several peaches and made a peach pound cake (to be topped with fresh peaches) tonight.  Michael’s dad called (and happened to be on our side of town), so we invited him over for dinner and cake.  We’ve been eating out a lot lately, so it was nice to have the energy and time today to bake and cook for my family!

Life is busy and I think vacation is a time for slowing down and doing the things you really enjoy doing.  This evening I feel productive, relaxed, and happy–  I could get used to this vacation thing.

One of the big moments in my early adult working life was when I realized that I could afford to live in a nice place ON MY OWN.

Even now, just knowing that I could rent my very own apartment tomorrow (not that I could imagine needing to do so) makes a world of difference.  It’s a milestone in adult life.  I was pushed to find my own place upon ending a relationship.  The timing worked out well, as I was able to afford one.  I lived on my own for three years, in two different apartments, before choosing to have a roommate again.

Recently, several friends have mentioned having roommate-related conflicts in their living situations and have lamented not being able to live alone.  It’s so much easier to deal with these predicaments when you can just go out and find an apartment, fill out the application, put a security deposit down, and pay rent for your own place.  It puts your mind at ease, for one thing, which impacts your ability to make decisions about roommates.  I was reminded of how hard it can be to reach this point in life in a conversation today about the recession, unemployment, job hunting, and comparatively-low starting salaries in Madison.  A little later, I read a blog post about a potential living situation that sounded just terrible.

Michael and I were talking about the “struggles to make a decent living” conversation for a few minutes in the car and realized that we’ve been very lucky.  I will keep that thought with me when I feel like griping about my job, which actually affords me a high amount of financial flexibility and choice in life.  Not having choices (or only having bad choices) sucks.

Well, the past couple of Tuesdays we have had to cancel our weekly movie night due to illness.  I came down with a cold about 24 hours after we returned from Maine and sniffled through most of last week.  Michael and I were both off on Monday for Memorial Day and I had taken Tuesday off as a vacation day for good measure.  Although I had to cancel movie night and a dentist appointment on Tuesday, I was back to work on Wednesday (with sniffles) and by the end of the week was feeling mostly OK.

Fast forward to this week.  Joe came down with a stomach bug during the night on Monday and was definitely sick this morning, so we canceled movie night again this week.

Hopefully in due time we will see both of the movies we have missed: The Maltese Falcon and Judgment at Nuremberg.  We’ve missed our Tuesday night movie crew!

The next couple of days are supposed to be sunny (we’ve had a lot of rain in the past week), so our roofing appointment has been moved up a few days, from Saturday to tomorrow morning.  By the end of the day tomorrow we should have a newly re-shingled roof!

On Thursday morning I am scheduled to take an insurance industry course exam off-site for work.  I’m not actively working toward a specific designation at this point, but I have taken a couple of courses now and after browsing through designations, there are a couple that might be worthwhile for me.  These courses are elective and are paid for upfront by my company, so the only restriction is what I am willing to commit to outside of work. I haven’t been inclined to rejoin the student ranks since graduate school, but that may change.  My company also offers tuition reimbursement for college degree programs, so there are many possibilities to explore if I’m willing to commit my free time.  However, I like free time and I already have advanced degrees, so … maybe I could just spend some quality time with my cats and my husband instead.

Oh, one more thing– Althea has posted some great write-ups (six) with photos of the trip to Maine on her blog.

Is it possible to train the mind to respond with compassion in all situations?

Sometimes it’s easy to respond compassionately– when someone obviously needs compassion.

It’s harder when someone is being obnoxious or saying something unthoughtful.

It’s harder when there are extenuating circumstances.

It’s harder when you feel compelled to argue with their position or provide a different perspective.

Sometimes people don’t want more to think about and they don’t want to argue.  They just want someone to acknowledge what they are feeling.

This is something to work on.