Last year, my New Year’s Resolution was that every single time someone helped me – in the grocery store, the drug store, gave me directions in a hospital or primate center (I did not go to any primate centers) – I would say, “Thank you, I appreciate your help.”
I like being told thank you, and I like being appreciated, so I can only imagine others might enjoy it too.
I did it. Every single time.
Then on my birthday, I added in that I would give a compliment every time I sincerely could.
I had a great 2013.
I spent so much time and energy looking for good things that I didn’t have nearly as much energy or daylight to burn on irritability or annoyance (except in parking lots. Everybody needs a vice).
An amazing thing happened. Around summertime, because I travel a beaten path, people I didn’t expect started recognizing me: the cashier at Publix greeted me last night with, “Long time no see!”
I’m going to continue that. It costs absolutely nothing, but I think it’s spreading a little bit of joy in a world where unpredictable things can go spectacularly wrong.
It has been a good year.
A goodish year.
Things were up and things were down.
I’m happy to be this side of the dirt.
It has been a tall year.
Mistakes were made, others will be blamed, an adequate time was had by all.
I will say this: I have had me a good time.
My brother is here with me and we might just make it all the way to midnight.
Peace and blessings to you all for the coming year.
I can’t remember where I left off.
Done & Done is going just swimmingly. We’re having a great time, and we’re in the black. We’ve found our groove, and what was just a lot of fun in the beginning has turned into an actual grown-up business. We’re in the black!
I’ve been fortunate in my working life to have never had a day when I woke up and just thought, “I can’t do this anymore,” and that continues to be true.
I’m busy all the time, but for the first time in my life, I see a direct correlation between what I’m sowing and what I’m reaping.
For the past week, we’ve been getting a family ready for Christmas – we’ve done everything for them: shopped for gifts for the family and extended family, wrapped gifts, staged them for Santa, decorated the house inside and out, shopped for food, figured out their Christmas meal, made sure they had ample linens, ordered furniture for them, just everything.
Yesterday, I had to drive up to their house one more time with their cold groceries and I pulled in right after the mother and father and two small children. They bounded out of the car, happy as clams. We went in the house with the groceries and the grandparents and aunts and uncles were there, and everyone was just eerily peaceful.
We made that happen for them.
Seeing that was so satisfying I very nearly told them I was going to give them their money back (not to worry, I didn’t).
That – being able to see where I have been – is what I have been looking for for years.
My own house looks like a cyclone struck it, and I have yet to put up the tree, but I feel such a huge sense of accomplishment for myself and my two business partners. It does not suck to be me.
Tomorrow I have to go get my Botox for Migraines shots, all 37 of them.
The last time I had them, I learned something: you won’t have the neck drop if you hold your head up straight for the rest of the entire day. Which makes the rest of the day horribly unproductive, but it’s worth it.
Our business, Done & Done, is up and running. It’s going well. We get busier and busier everyday, so it’s a good thing we like being busy.
The most important thing I have to say is that a month ago, my friend John had brain surgery for a cancerous tumor. The tumor is 100% gone, but he will still be going through chemo and radiation. His journey is far from over, but he is concentrating on being well so that he will be well. I appreciate all of your good thoughts and prayers for him and his wife.
Like I said, Amanda and Beth and I started a company.
It’s hard work starting a company. There are a lot of details to tend to, because it has to be right.
Today we spent nearly seven hours sitting in one spot fiddling with just one thing, but that’s just how it is. There is no one else to do it, there is no aside to put it.
There’s still more to do, of course, and we aim to be open by September 3.
There’s insurance to buy, the website to launch, buttons and forms to test, photos to take, just so many tiny details.
This is the best job I’ve ever had.
For those what have been wondering what I’m going to do for my next trick, I have joined forces with two friends, Amanda and Beth, to form a company, Done & Done.
Done & Done is a concierge service.
We are full of ideas and are moving right along setting up the foundations of our business and will soon be up and running. I’ll post more as we become ready to take clients.
We are excited and looking forward to what the future holds.
I almost ran over a young man riding a bicycle this morning.
I was driving south on Peachtree in the far-right-hand lane, making a right on red (which Brother Jimmy Carter made legal unless posted in all 50 states in 1977) with my blinker on.
Cycle Joe was riding his bicycle on my left, between my lane and the other south-bound lane of traffic. Where I didn’t expect him to be. And he was making a right in front of my car.
I slammed on my brakes in just the very nick of time and he snarled at me.
I rolled down the window and said these exact words, “Oh my God. I am so sorry. Are you okay?”
What he did was sneer at me and then position himself in such a way that he was both on and off the sidewalk, when he could have been crossing, but did not, nor could I make my turn. And he kept turning and sneering some more.
Now. I would have been devastated had I injured that man. Even though he was in the wrong.
And even though he was in the wrong, I apologized and was sincere about it. His failure to at least answer me was the most graceless act I have seen all year, and for a split second there, I wanted to get up there and nudge him a little bit.
This has been your manners moment for the day.
Soon I will be vocationally dislocated for some period of time.
While I do hope this won’t be for a protracted period of time, there are some things I’m looking forward to doing while I am.
I need to clean out my pantry in the worst way. I can barely get it all the way open now, and when I do, I can’t see what’s in there. It’s making me nuts.
My living room floor could stand to be stripped and waxed really good. I don’t particularly enjoy this sort of thing. Unless I can rent a machine. Then I rather like it. Even better would be if I had reason to rent a forklift, which I do not know how to drive, but how hard could it be?
Lunch. I’d like to have lunch with my DF, Jennifer, or maybe some coffee, or maybe just sit around doing nothing but giggling. And Lynn. I like hanging out with Lynn in the middle of the day. My other Lynn, my cousin Lynn, has to travel up this way sometimes to work. We might could have lunch or something.
I need to make a quick trip to Savannah to see some people I want to see, and check out Savannah.
Then I need to stop in Middle Georgia and visit family, take care of some bidness, have a hamburger at the Minit Grill, that sort of thing.
If I manage to get all that done, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. And then I hope I’ll be done with having free time.
Almost every single person I’ve mentioned Q-tips to has said, “Ooh. I know you’re not supposed to put them in your ears, but I do it all the time. I love it.”
So.
Just like a Slattery 