The Potter's Wheel

Yesterday was THE DAY. The day that we had a presentation for one of our funders. It is a HUGE deal and I woke up with no voice. Yep. I rasped my way through that sucker and sounded like the godfather of nonprofits..... Leave some money, take the cannoli.

Seriously, in the elevator two hours before the presentation I was stressing out and thought, today I want to be a potter.... pottist? potterier... Hmm... Whoever makes clay pots on a pottery wheel, that is who I want to be today. The thought of an escape of any kind was like a sweet 5 minute vacation from the reality the I would soon be standing in front of 14 people telling them why we needed them to give us money, and that I would deliver the speech sounding like the frog whisperer.

Lately I have been feeling a little burned out.Compassion fatigue I think they call it. Really it is, "there is so much red tape trying to help people that don't really want to be helped fatigue". It's exhausting. I don't know how social workers work more than two years before running from their offices, screaming and hiding from the world in a remote mountain cabin or desert island for the rest of their lives.

Some people really just sort of suck and that is just reality.

The presentation I think went well, and if the 14 people that were there for funding purposes didn't enjoy it, that’s okay, I enjoyed it. I was reminded of why I get up in the morning and go to the job that exhausts me.

I cried.

This won't come as a surprise to anyone that knows me because I cry about everything.  Good, bad, happy, sad, I cry.

I cried in front of the people that were there for the presentation. I am not sure if anyone saw me, and I think I hid it well, but in hind sight I wish I would have just let the tears flow.

The people that I work with are awesome. We have the best yet worst jobs in the world. We are those "we are the world" saps trying to make a difference. Today in just 10 minutes of a young girl’s time, I saw it. She painted a picture for our funders of what we do, and she showed us as well. And I cried. And I am not ashamed.

Now back to the potterierister or whatever.

People are much like pottery. They are molded and shaped by their family and the people around them. As they grow they find their own designs and paint their lives the colors they choose. Along the way there are people, us, every one of us in the world, and as they pass by us we can ignore them or we can try and throw little something positive at them. Sometimes it bounces off their sides or it's a rim shot and ALMOST makes it.  Other times whatever we are throwing their way, if carefully aimed, makes it in or sticks to the side.

Unfortunately, the kids that we work with are often molded and shaped by people that are terrible at making pottery and screw up these little vessels. And we can't fix them. They have to fix themselves. What we can to do is give them the tools to figure out how to make the repairs, and then cheer them on along the way.

We are all potterieristers.... every day.                                      

Let us be careful with our clay.

OCD and scattered don't mix

Sophie is just like me.  Scattered and rambling.  It can be very frustrating to someone that is not like us, like her father. In the last year I have come to appreciate my husband for the overly OCD person that he can be. He is the one that prepares, I am the fly by the seat of my pants sort of parent that should be fun, but often isn’t because I have let OCD creep into my scattered and rambling.  I came to the realization today that I am going to have to embrace it; I have to embrace the person that is me. I am going to have to be the,  I didn’t prepare for this so we are just going to go with it- parent, instead of stressing that things aren’t going right because I didn’t really prepare- parent. 

I read a blog entry tonight from a pretty smart mom, about trying to juggle everything and how many balls end up on the floor.  I don’t have any literal balls on my floor right now, but the clean house I came home to at 4:30 pm is now strewn with shoes, bead necklaces and baby dolls.  My kids destroyed my house in the 4 hours before bedtime. Am I stressing about it? No, I fed them their father’s birthday cake and part of a chocolate milkshake and put them in bed….. without making them brush their teeth.  And I am not going stress about it.   Instead I am going to sit here; thank God they are finally asleep and enjoy the peace of my house.  Then I am going to pin a few hundred pictures to my pinterest boards. 

Tomorrow, I am going to take a new approach to cleaning, called “Scavenger hunt” and whoever gets the most toys out of the living room and into the playroom where they belong is going to get a prize.  There will actually be first and second place prizes so there will be no tears.  Then I am going to destroy the playroom that they have just cleaned, and together my girls and I are going to paint the walls a beautiful shade of green. And have fun. And make some memories.  And I won’t get all OCD if a bit of it gets on the wood work, because guess what, I just don’t care enough about it, I AM going to enjoy painting with them.  

Day Dreamin'

Have you seen Ramona and Beezus?  Ramona is exactly the sort of day dreamer I used to be. When I was younger my day dreams would last throughout the day pausing for breaks only when I was forced back to reality. They were outrageous, vividly real, sometimes romantic and always ended perfect.  I was able to function during my daydreams.  I remember in 3^rd grade having a wildly ridiculous daydream while doing my work one day.  The work was terribly boring and while writing whatever it was I was writing, I was daydreaming about a certain boy that I had a crush on; he swung through the classroom on a Tarzan rope, picking me up as he swung and when we landed we were on the island from Swiss Family Robinson.  We spent the rest of the day riding Zebras and swimming in the wonderful pool of water from the movie. Now that is a cool daydream. 

As I got older my day dreams continued, but they are not as exciting or as real as they were when I was young.  Day dreams are something I have pondered about quite a lot recently.  I can’t decide if the daydreams have affected my sense of happiness one way or the other. Did the daydreams from my past give me an altered sense of what life should be like as an adult, or is it that the inability to daydream like I once did,  makes me less happy? Or does my day dreaming have anything to do with anything? 

The last vivid daydream I can remember having was when I was sitting in the car at a stop light and a man walked by without me realizing he was coming up so close to the car.  I then played out a series of events of what I would do if I was car jacked.  They were vivid and I always got away from the maniac, but seriously, couldn’t I start having better day dreams? 

It seems to me that when you are young, daydreams are a way that your mind fills all the blanks that are in your life and fixes the things that are beyond your control.  Once you reach a certain point in your life, the blanks get filled and you realize that you have quite a lot of power to fix things on your own- so your daydream possibilities are pretty narrowed……  This is where; if we are good and devoted members of the day dreamers club,  we have a responsibility to start dreaming bigger. 

So go on out and dream the biggest day dream possible, I'll catch you on the other side of reality.

What Dreams May Come

What Dreams May Come.  Well if this blog ever gets any sort of notoriety, I will be surprised.  Let's just start with "What Dreams May Come." 

It was raining this morning.  We haven't had a REALLY GOOD rain in a very long time and I AM grateful for it, however it put me in the kind of mood that is better suited to staying home, cooking stews, listening to Harry Potter and doing crafts all day.  Needless to say I have been fairly unproductive. I HAVE worked, don't get me wrong, but in my mind I am thinking about the gypsy sweater coat that I really want to make, I am thinking about redecorating my house, which is boring and brown, I am thinking about quitting this job and becoming a junk dealer.... not just any junk dealer, a dealer of REALLY COOL junk.

So after doing some social networking (for work), answering some emails, and writing a few procedures, I decide to write my very first blog during a very short break. First is figuring out how to get back to my profile.  Finally, I figured that out. Then how to actually write this.... I guess this "piece" on my blog.  I fiddled around with it for a bit, was redirected to the new formatting, told to pick a URL, I have no idea what the hell I am doing.... I was told to name my blog, for which I wrote,” What Dreams May Come" thinking it would be a perfect title for this first piece I am going to write about my morning daydreams.... and now, somehow…… my blogs name is- What Dreams May Come. I could have sworn my blog was going to be “The Bohemian Banshee” but alas, I have no idea what that title is for... I do still have it. Is it my name?

So Fate has given my blog the name “What Dreams May Come”.  And that’s fine. I have a lot of dreams.  We will see what happens with all of those dreams, if you decide that you want to follow, "What Dreams May Come". I promise my writing it will be much like the Three Stooges trying to write a blog.
Happy Thursday.