Just when you thought the women’s movement had done its’ job and you could quit burning your bras, you read a story like this. It seems there is more tolerance for wife abuse than there is for animal abuse – at least in the sports world. I’m thanking my lucky starts I’m not married to a professional athlete.
1. 4:30 this afternoon. Two days of chairing meetings – done.
2. Receiving a heartfelt compliment from someone who’s generally critical of my work.
3. Feeling the energy in the room when, more than once, someone dared to say “What if…” and then proceeded to share a “blow your mind” good idea.
4. Introducing Steve Bell at the banquet and calling him “friend”.
5. Listening to Steve tell stories of Ethiopia and sing the song.
6. Walking to the grocery store for milk in the drizzly rain after all was said and done and I could relax.
7. Eating the amazing food prepared by some of my favourite people who also happen to be the best caterers for miles around.
8. Realizing, at the end of a meeting with my team (the first of the two days of meetings), that it was the best meeting we’ve had since I started this job.
9. Watching the people I’ve hired since I started in the job and realizing I’ve hired well.
10. Being greeted at the door by two of my daughters doing a Charlie’s Angel routine.
11. Words of encouragement from someone I admire.
12. Knowing I’d handled the talkative person in the room as graciously as possible when I had to tell her to “wrap it up”.
13. Realizing I’ve developed some meaningful friendships with some people in this group of “business associates”.
I have very little brain-space for blogging these days, but I thought I’d at least come on and tell you I’m still alive and mostly happy and I haven’t decided to ditch you for another set of blog readers on the other side of the proverbial fence. Here are a few random things you may or may not care about:
– I took Maddie to the cardiologist yesterday. She still has a slight heart murmur, which means she has a hole the size of a pin in her heart, but they assure us it will never have any significant impact on her life and there is no reason to worry. I felt a little guilty walking out of the heart clinic – most of the kids in there were regular visitors who really DID have heart problems (one had even had a heart transplant, and another had just gotten his wish from the Children’s Wish Foundation and all the nurses were doting on him) and here I was with the healthy kid who didn’t need to come back.
– There are about 30 people descending on me from all parts of the country this week, and I have to host them for two days of meetings and an evening banquet. I am SO not prepared. I feel completely scattered and disorganized. Fortunately, I’ve been doing this long enough that I’m pretty good at wingin’ it and I have enough “back-story” to remember that it’s often when I feel least in control that the results are the most positive and memorable.
– I helped put together a powerpoint for Rob’s mom (Michele’s mother-in-law) who died last week, and even though I hardly knew her, it was quite lovely going through her pictures and imagining what she was like as a young woman. She had the most beautiful, open, bold face in her youth. I think she would have been alot of fun to hang around with.
– I may live to regret it (if people start posting the kind of things on my wall that Joyce is collecting – yeesh!), but I joined Facebook. Okay, is it just me, or does it make you feel like you’re back in junior high when you have to ask people to be your “friends” and then you sit and wait to see if they’ll walk past your locker at recess and say “hi” even though they’re one of the cool kids and you’re SO not? I mostly joined so that I could hook up with the End Hunger Fast group that’s linked to our new website, and now I’m trying to figure out what all the hype is all about.
– Today is World Food Day. If you are so inclined, take a moment today to prayerfully consider the over 850 million people in the world who do not have enough to eat. Approximately every 5-8 seconds, there is someone in the world dying from hunger-related illness. It’s too much for the brain to comprehend, but as Mother Theresa said “if you can’t feed 100 people, then feed just one.”
Today was a “fumbling” kind of day. I made mistakes. I communicated poorly. I might have jeopardized an important business relationship because I treated someone rather brusquely before I realized what I was doing. On top of that, I had to have a couple of tough conversations with people who work for me. Feelings were quite probably hurt.
The mantle of leadership felt too heavy on my shoulders today. It was the kind of day that made me wish (at least momentarily) that I could throw off the mantle and just count widgets for awhile. Maybe just for a day or two. At least then I wouldn’t have to make decisions or walk tenderly around relationships – I’d just count. Counting I can do. In fact I’m quite competent at it. 1. 2. 3… This leadership stuff… I’m just not feeling quite as competent today.
A few days ago, when I was cleaning up a corner of the basement for “the renovation project that will see my hair turning grey before it’s finished”, I came across an envelope addressed to me in my father’s unmistakable handwriting. I think there were only two or three times I ever got anything in the mail from my dad. I wrote about another one of those times here. I could never throw any of them out, but I don’t quite know what to do with them, so they have a way of popping up now and then when I’m cleaning. When I got home from work today, I re-read the one I’d most recently found. I needed it.
On a little pink scrap of paper (something that had been discarded from the Auction Mart where he worked – my dad was into recycling long before it was trendy), was this very brief note.
“The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.” Proverbs 23:24
I don’t remember what preceded this note. The postmark says 1999, but I can’t remember if there was something significant that happened that year that made my dad send me a note that, in his own way, said “I’m proud of you. You are a wise child.” Perhaps I’d accomplished something that he wanted to honour me for. Or perhaps it was a time when I was filled with self-doubt and he thought I needed to hear that I was capable and that he believed in me.
I don’t remember how it made me feel to get that simple note in the mail. I’m sure it choked me up a little. I only know how it felt to find it this weekend, four years after he died. And I know how it felt to read it again after a day that left me feeling anything but “wise”.
I think I’ll frame it and put it on my desk. Tomorrow when I go back to work, I’m going to need a little boost to help me move forward. If my dad believed I was wise, then who am I to doubt it?
Pamela asked to see our October view for Fun Monday, and I had every intention of wandering around the neighbourhood today looking for the perfect shot to entice all of you to visit and to prove that Winnipeg is NOT the arm-pit of the nation, but it rained all day long AND I was stuck in the basement working on the “renovation project that just won’t end”. So you’ll have to be satisfied with these slim-pickins’.
I stepped outside in the drizzle and snapped this. You can see that most of the leaves have been released from the trees.
This is along the side of the house – I snapped this a couple of days ago before the rains came.
I don’t have a particularly inspiring view from my kitchen window, but when autumn comes, I like to watch the myriad of colours changing on our unruly shrub.
Here’s a close-up view of that shrub. There seem to be a variety of plants that have managed to assert themselves in what is supposed to be a “shrub” bordering our property.
And here’s a fairly common view in our backyard. 