I had just finished my workout yesterday morning (Kathy Smith’s Shaper Ball Workout — don’t buy it. It’s great on form, but too short, too slow-paced, too much talking, and no music) when the Empress called me. She was on her way over to try out a new computer thing.
Our lives right now are filled with new computer things.
I warned her about the untidiness of my house and headed for the shower. When she arrived, we spent an hour and a half trying to do… something. Not sure what. We began by following the directions carefully, moved on to plausible variations on the directions, and finished up with random stuff. Since every step from finding the Control Panel on required intensive trial and error, the task was pretty hopeless.
She went to the computer store and they helped her. “We were doing it wrong,” she said, wearily, when she called later to report.
“I figured,” said I.
Then I had lunch with Janalisa. She explained some concerns and frustrations regarding a mutual involvement of ours. I had some ideas, of course — you know I love giving advice. She saw the force of my suggestion, but she said, “If you go into the meeting with that, people will not say, ‘Oh, good, our problem is solved.'”
Back at work, I got all excited about the new look of our store website, the fact that 10 times as many people come visit compared with last month, and the great success of the store blog. I have no idea whether these are good things that will lead to our eventual success in this mission or not. I don’t even know what success in this mission would look like. I continued to field customers’ complaints and grimaces and assurances that they wouldn’t shop with us any more, and presented the now 50/50 split on positive and negative comments to That Man with some semblance of jubilation.
Homeward.
In addition to failing to keep my house decent, I also had not done my homework for my Tuesday class. In my zeal to do at least some of it before class, I charred dinner, thus ensuring that both of the things I needed to do last evening would be done badly.
So, what with one thing and another, I limped through the day doing things badly. Now, I have no self-esteem issues, so I was not downcast by this, but I was in a receptive mood for last night’s lesson: among other things, a timely reminder that I am not in charge of the universe. Neither is the universe conducted for my benefit.
The Apostle Paul said, “I have learned the secret of being happy in all circumstances.” So I have gratefully received, this morning, a communication from Arkenboy filled with more things for me to do badly.
His last list is what has gotten us this far with the website and the store blog, so I am approaching the new list with enthusiasm. And faith.
Besides, as I told The Empress, just think how elastic our brains will be, with all the new things we are learning.
Sometimes those timely reminders are a swift kick in the pants – and sometimes they are a subtle reminder of the things that we have forgotten. I love it when the latter happens. 🙂 RYC: Aye, I go to the corrections facility 3 – 4 times per year and I usually know what to expect (I go to the minimum side). The women are pretty good – I can tell who is going to be a “charmer” and who is going to be a “stinker” when I get in there. It’s so obvious. And I know in my heart-of-hearts that I am not suited for work in corrections. I’m a little too soft and they’d see through it. So, having visited often, one would think I know the routine (the denim, the “wrong” colours to wear, etc). So, what did I forget? The underwire bra. Thank goodness, I ran into my friend in the parking lot before we headed in to the facility and told her (I was wearing a shirt that needs a bra). We looked EVERYWHERE for a different top for me to wear, but NOOOOO, we couldn’t find one. So what did we do? We hid my bra in her purse and I put it on in the restroom after I went through security. Bad me.