March 3, 2002

Welcome to Wyndspirit Dreams! I don't care what the calendar says, March is my favorite month, and, to me, the real start of the year. That said, my resolution is to have a simpler, calmer year than I did last year. Last year at this time my life was starting to become seriously insane at work. This year it is just the opposite--things are finally beginning to calm down. I am slowly adjusting to all the changes and beginning to see the bright side of it all. The new account I work for is more high-pressure and stressful, but I am at long last having the opportunity to use my computer hardware background, and I am very comfortable with the work. I still have a lot to learn, but, given time, I know I'll be as experienced as I was with the ISP account, and it will be experience that will do me some good if I decide to move on.

I don't know if this quote is particularly relevant to anything I have to say today, but it fits my mood. I just had a wonderful rare weekend off, and I never left the house. It was too cold to be worth even walking after the mail Saturday. So what did I do with myself? After I got home from my evening shift, I settled down in my favorite chair and read till what would have been too late an hour for a work night. Then I curled up in the same chair, pulled a beloved afghan over me, and snuggled down to sleep with my blissful cat. I set my little alarm clock, but ignored it when it went off. (What's the point of setting an alarm clock when you plan to ignore it anyway? Because it's a weekend, and you can ignore it.)

Then I put some great music on the stereo and got busy. Well, relatively speaking. Did some light housecleaning, planned some furniture rearranging, worked on a backlog of stuff on the computer, and took frequent breaks to curl up in my chair with a good book. At the end of the day, I went to sleep in my chair again, and when I got up today I did more of the same.

I really needed this weekend. I worked my first eight-day stretch with my new department at work. I got very spoiled with ten-hour shifts and four days on, three days off. However, I am rediscovering the small joys of daily living. When I worked ten-hour shifts (twelve hours during mandatory overtime), I did nothing but work and sleep on my work days and had to cram my entire life into my three days off, frequently leaving me more tired than I was when I finished my work week. Now I have a little time to live during the work week as well. I can do errands and visiting and housecleaning during the week, and have my days off to myself.

But it's not the days off that I want to talk about. Everybody knows how to enjoy their days off. The problem is, two or even three days a week doesn't leave much time for living. I tolerate my job, and I try to take pleasure in it where I can, but I just put in my time--it is definitely not my life! But I want to talk about the small, daily joys that occur even on a workday. When I come home from work, I frequently stand outside for awhile just looking at the stars. It's a view I never get tired of. The stars are even more beautiful in winter, and I will stand outside until the cold chases me in. Then there are the summer days. The summer before last was one of the nicest I can remember. There was nothing spectacular about it, but I made a point to enjoy it to the utmost. Every workday I was up around noon, then outside puttering around my flower gardens, and when it began to cool down I would sit in the swing in my front yard and just savor until I had to go in and get ready for work.

Last summer I didn't sit in my swing once. Not one time. I even had somebody offer to buy it from me, but I refused. A person has to have something to hope for, and I held on to the hope that I would once again have a summer when I had time to sit in my swing. I would have never in a million years imagined the circumstances that would bring it about, but it looks like this summer is going to be that kind of a summer, and I am looking forward to it already.

But that's for the summer. Right now it's barely March, and there's snow on the ground and a raw wind blowing. Tomorrow it's back to work, but not till evening. Tonight I plan on a nice hot shower and some quality letter-writing time before I go to bed, and tomorrow morning I'm going visiting for the day. It will be a workday, but it won't be a wasted day!