My Head is Full

Trying to get back into the habit of semi-regular exercise, which in winter is hard for me. I have a treadmill (thanks to my Mom breaking her ankle a few years ago and not being allowed to do weight-bearing exercise anymore), but there’s little I find more boring. I listen to music most of the time, and on the odd occasion will watch TV (Supernatural last night), but I find I slow down with the TV on. I like it better during the long days of summer when can get a walk or two a day in the out of doors. There’s a hella lot more visual stimuli.

So, three days into the week. That’s how long it took the hiring manager to call me back about the job that I’m uncertain about to begin with. My manager is back tomorrow and I either need to tell him I want to at least apply so I can interview or fergit-about-it. I’m leaning to the latter. One side still says that it’s worth just a face-to-face, but the other side says I’m wasting everyone’s time. A tiny (I swear) piece o background. I’ve worked for the same company almost 7 years. The first 3 were in the department I’m in now. I interviewed and transferred out for a year and a half. A good chunk of it was fairly miserable. I leapt into the unknown and was ready to look elsewhere, but the department I came from got wind and asked me back. So, back I went, and I’m grateful I had that option. Hence the idea that I don’t feel like (at this point) leaping willy-nilly into something I’m not positive about. If it was the group I had hoped it was when I saw the job listing, sure, I’d go for it, but that my first reaction was less than positive seems to be the key to me.

Does this mean I’ll take the safe route forever? I hope not. I’ve come to believe some of the worst decisions in life are the safe ones. At least, when I look back on my life to date, I feel like I made some personally life-stunting decisions by taking the easy path or the safe choice. So, hopefully this is not me copping out again. Right now, where I am gets me where I need to be financially. That’s a big thing. The group I have an interest in will hire again, of course. So, I’ll have other options down the road.

Cop out?

So, at work, the last week or two, I’ve gone along with my manager’s recommendation. As lead of my team, I’ve been farming out the work, answering questions, helping them, checking behind, etc., rather than trying to do that and work projects of my own. Never my style before, but where I am now, I was being pulled in about a dozen directions lately. And it’s working fairly well so far. I feel less stress. And I’ve developed some side projects that aren’t time sensitive, developing documentation, and such. Today I spent time working on a fairly smart spreadsheet my manager mentioned needing the other day. It’s got to be able to sort through data based on date, generate report, etc. I’m mostly done with it. I did everything in visual basic. Since I’ve never had any training, that’s meant a lot of google for answers! The part that stumped me the longest was adding a password before the macro was executed. The spreadsheet has to be available for data entry, but report removes data from it, so some dolt hitting the button could be a bad thing! kay, are you bored yet?

If you weren’t you will be…

So, a few weeks ago, my Mom’s hometown paper starts publishing an article on my Dad’s family in the genealogy section each week. Our last name is not common (except in a few areas of the country), so it’s always exciting to see the name, nevermind when they actually list your great, great grandfather! Woohoo! I contacted the author and sent him what I have on our branch of the tree. It was kind of a pre-emptive strike as I’ve seen several genealogies that screw up part of our branch starting with my grandfather’s siblings (he had one brother and a couple of half sibs). And it bugs me everytime I see it.

But it got me thinking as I looked at how thin some of it was. Names and dates…. and little else to mark the passage of so many. After I sent it, realized that the cousin who died in Vietnam had NOTHING for info., no birth or death dates, nothing. This is something I grew up knowing about, his death left me and my cousin, Tim, as the sole male descendents of our branch of the tree, the only ones to pass on the name. And I had not so much as place of death, which I know. I dutifully added what I know, found his info. from the online wall, etc.

And over the course of days since, it’s hitting me how much of our history we all lose everyday. My grandmother lived to be 92 and she’s three years gone now. How long before she’s a birth and death date? I never knew my grandfather, but I grew up hearing my Dad talk about him fondly and constantly quote him. My Dad idolized his father, so I have a no-doubt distorted view of hi, yet like the stories Granny told me, nothing have been committed to any form of text.

Will Granny’s great grandchildren know that she was born in a log cabin? Will they know that a cousin (whose name I’ve forgotten) was the one who taught her the alphabet. Granny told me this one day as she read the woman’s obituary. As Granny had to help at home, she didn’t get past 3rd grade, but late in life she still felt grateful towards the person who had played a part in the education she had. Even of my grandfather’s grandchildren, how many have heard that he claimed our grandmother nodded him into marriage. He said she started off asking innocuous questions like, “nice weather we’re having?” and so on, until she asked if marriage sounded like a good idea. How many know that they both wanted a different life for their children? Both had grown up, like so many, in farming families. Granny inherited land from her maternal grandfather, which was where they raised their children. I asked her once why none of the children farmed and Granny told me that life on a farm was hard. Some years were good, but others were bad. Neither of them wanted their children’s lives to be ruled by the weather.

Just random fragments of people’s lives that make them richer to people than names in print years hence. And I feel that it’s ‘s time to start getting some of this down, while there are still people in my family (both sides) who can talk about their parents, grandparents, themselves, siblings, etc. It’s a tall task, but everyday, we’re losing our history.

So, just a sample of what’s in my brain and how schitzophrenic I can be somedays.