Living the Happily Ever After

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrgh! I had most of a thoughtful post written up Friday when I realized I had to leave to get Kosh and catch the bus. I was hopeful that the autosave function or doing a quick copy before shutting down would have saved it, but no. It's gone. I'll have to try to recreate it.

The first part was about spider love. http://www.zenparentingradio.com/archive/love-is-it-real-or-fake/ This show talked about genuine love, and spider love. I think that this is something I have to fight. Groblek does an amazing job of catching me when I'm doing spider love things, and making me actually express myself and let him know what I need.

Then I was listening to this on Talk of the Nation, and I thought it was really thought provoking. http://www.npr.org/2013/03/04/173440431/op-ed-theres-an-app-for-everything-and-thats-a-problem
I think it's an interesting thing to think about. I think in general apps can be amazing tools, but it is important to be aware of why you're using it. I think it is also important to put down all of our devices and get out and experience life.

Then I was reading this http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/03/silenced-stories-of-survivors-of-sexual-assault-and-abortions/?upw

I'm pro-choice I totally agree that she should have the right to have the abortion, and do so without being harassed. However, because she self identifies as a college educated reasonably comfortable women with good health insurance, I found myself really annoyed that she didn't appear to use birth control.

I'm troubled by this response in myself. It says to me that this is one of those things that EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO, but isn't for me. Which is about the way I managed to think about being gay right up until I came out to myself. What does it say that it is okay, but other. Is that acceptance or tolerance.

I was somewhere in the middle of the last bit when I had to leave Friday.

In New stuff to read and share:
***GREAT FREE BOOK***
http://rolanni.livejournal.com/830074.html
Go get it. Read it. Enjoy it and explore the rest of the universe. This is one of the series Groblek and I really like.  The authors aren't local, but we did get to meet them when we got to go to World Con.  They're supper lovely people, and you can follow Sharron Lee at the link, and both of them on facebook.

This is one of several good entry points.  This is an amazing series!  We have all of it, and may be able to lend out books if you get hooked and can't afford to buy them all.

***BE PART IF RESEARCH***
There's a cancer research looking for volunteers.  There are chances to participate in Sac and Davis in early April, and elsewhere as well.  Let's help science work.

http://www.cancer.org/research/researchprogramsfunding/epidemiology-cancerpreventionstudies/cancerpreventionstudy-3/index

General check in:
Resolutions:
Judgement has sort of fallen into the back brain.  I'm really just not getting my hands around how to address this.

Exercise is going well.  I've been adding a bit of dancing into my lunch break in the last week, and I really enjoy the idea of keeping it up.  Missed today, but maybe Wednesday (Tuesday's yoga)

Lent
I'm underwhelmed by giving up facebook.  I'm not having trouble with it, but it seems like I was wasting a lot of time there, and the result hasn't been to get any of that time back.  I think my attention span has expanded, and I'm happy with that.  I'm probably going to be back after Easter, but not as active.

Giving up sweets.  Still going strong.  This moved to Lent because it was always meant to be temporary and it gives me a handy frame.  I'm looking at limiting myself to one serving of sweets per day once I hit the end of Lent.

I skipped the bike yesterday because I was feeling icky, and took it light, but did get on this morning.  Officially that covers me for the week, but I may try to get on again before Monday.

I haven't been thinking much on the judgement.  I'm not sure if this is me being less judgmental, or if I'm less aware.  I think I'll work to upgrade my awareness, and see what happens.

Starting Tuesday the hanging resolution (giving up sweets) is in effect.  I specifically decided to hold off on starting this until all holiday related sweets were out of the household.  So far I've been reasonably successful.

I had nutter butters and cracker jacks today, but I'm okay with this because it is a regular once in a while thing.  I gave blood today, and I usually get cracker jacks and some other snacky bit from the snack table when I give blood.

Incidentally I really love that we have regular blood drives at work.  It means I've given a lot more blood than I would have otherwise.

The major workload I've been anticipating just failed to materialize.  We were anticipating 30-50 proposals to examine, and we got 9.  This does mean we'll have a good deal of work related to figuring out what to do about the lack of response, but my specific screening goal should go way down.

I'm kind of hoping not to be involved in further work on this particular project, but I do need to seek out more work at work.

First I'm declaring amnesty for last week.  My mom was in town, and my routine was totally off.

On the other hand:
This week I started off today with 10 minute on the bike.  Hopefully I'm back into routine.
In exercise that don't count I've started a game of chase with Kosh.  I run and hide behind a tree, that either wouldn't hide him, or/and I poke my head out, and he chases me.  It gets both of us some exercise, and helps with the fairly regular goal of tiring Kosh out in prep to getting him to sleep.

I've mostly been thinking on the judgement thing:
I got some really good suggestions on facebook:
My SIL suggested that hanging around with people who aren't judgmental would help.  I think this must be true, although so far my observation is the counter example.  I had my annual physical (since it had been since 2010) last Monday, and the doctor who was generally pleasant and professional, got to talking about driving in traffic, and how awful (other) drivers were.  I found myself agreeing and exclaiming about how bad drivers were.  On further reflection, I'm pretty sure I've been that driver for many of the complaints discussed.  So I was actively judgmental in the conversation, but I rescinded internally afterwards, and put some thought into it.  I think the raised awareness will be a benefit to me.

wondermentalist suggested cutting myself some slack in that we can't really be harder on ourselves than we are on others.

I think she's right, but I don't want to lower my standards for myself.  One of the things that Methodists are exhorted to do is move continually to perfection.  It's always resonated with me.  On the other hand I can look at what I'm judging myself on, and examine if it does reflect moving towards perfection. 

At the same time as far as external judgement however this is still useful, especially since I know that wondermentalist has some high standards for herself, is to assume that everyone has similarly stringent, but differently framed standards for themselves, so while I'm looking at someone and thinking OMG I can't believe they're using 5 paper towels for that, they're turning and looking at me and thinking OMG I can't believe she's letting her rinsed cup drip for hopefully more important standards.

More pondering, and a LOT more practice necessary.

No movement on the career front although one of my co workers is testing my judgmental resolution, and making me more likely to move forward on the career resolution.  I really miss our old attorney, and not just because I liked her.  She was much easier to work with, and apparently had an amazing store of knowledge, and she was better about making sure she knew what she was talking about before she started talking, and somehow this didn't involve long waits for her to start discussing an item.  I know the new guy is new to this position, he only started in August, so he's even newer than me, and I know that we pile a lot on our attorneys, and I can't even begin to fathom the complexity of the law involved, so I'm sure that he's very intelligent, and a good attorney.  I've just been spoiled by a line of attorneys who I worked better with, and I know I'm at least as hard to work with as he is.