Friday, September 25, 2015

Greetings From the Fountain

On this beautiful day in Crocker Park, 90% through an uncharacteristically difficult work week, I opted to have my lunch outside.
As beautiful as my work neighborhood is, I rarely leave my office for lunch.   This is not due to an affinity for lunch at my desk, but more a result of my increasingly busy schedule and the difficulty and frustration that comes from trying to run a growing Jamberry business or process dog adoption applications from an iPhone 5.
So I eat at my desk, with my ergonomic keyboard and my dual monitors, breathing the recycled, too-cold office air, envying the ladies who lunch outside my window, and wonder why I’m burned out.
Duh.
But today, in an effort to circumvent this week's plague of computer issues, I brought my trusty laptop to work.  And, as expected, I didn’t need it.  The morning was blessedly free of technical difficulties but as sure as I sit here enjoying  the fall sun, listening to children giggle as people take group photos in front of the fountain (WHAT is so interesting about that fountain?), I know that had I not brought my laptop I would have had to go home for it and wanted to punch things the whole way.
So when lunch time rolled around I thought to myself, “Self…why not sling the trusty laptop over your shoulder, grab that leftover Subway sandwich and go have lunch in the courtyard?”  To which I replied, “Self, that’s a great idea!”
Alas, none of the available wifi networks are public, and my phone is not being a cooperative hotspot.  So I am disconnected.  Well as disconnected as I get, given that I do have my phone.  While I do have things I should be doing with a full sized keyboard and screen, it’s just too pretty out and days like this in Ohio are numbered.  So I’m not going back yet.  And the WiFi Gods can’t make me.
So I write.  It’s been a while.
As I approach the half-century mark, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned.  They say life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.  But I find that as I get older, while the time DOES move faster, I also seem to cram more learning into each quickly passing year.  The last ten years, in particular, I have become infinitely more aware of myself.  Of what I need and what I won’t tolerate, what I’m capable of and what I just don’t want to bother with.  What is important and what is necessary.  What comes easy and what I have to work at.  And what’s worth the work.
Blog Over Lunch is worth the work and, truth be told, it usually comes easy...once I get started.  I just have to get started.  It makes me feel good and I’ve been told it means something to a few people.  So I need to start putting it higher up on my priority list.  And you, one of my four dear readers, are probably sitting there thinking you’ve read this before.  And I’ve meant it before. 
For now I have to get back up to the office wifi so I can post this and finish out the last four hours of this horrendous work week.  But I promise it won’t take a lack of WiFi to get me started again.  Soon.