the mayo jar & 2 cups of coffee...

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

When things in your lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee. A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.' The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things--GOD, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.The sand is everything else---the small stuff. 'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. 'Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Praying and asking God to help, Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.' One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. 'I'm glad you asked.It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.'

from an email sent by tammy ramsey...i did as asked (send it on) and circulated it from school. got a couple of emails back, including from the principal, thanking me for sending it, that it was good...
maybe you could do the same...send it on...

Today's daily OM is again sort of in line with how i have been feeling. i am probably more than a little disconnected from what i should be doing. there have been plenty of distractions, in particular dealing with this difficult time with austin. i have spent the last week doing things like working on this blog, learning html code, thinking about writing things. i have sought out some help with photoshop 7.0 and photoshop elements 6.0, and have been actively engaged in trying to at least think about some things that are stimulating to me creatively. today after school i went spent a few minutes with the graphics arts teacher figuring out how to do something on photoshop. then i went to the ruriteens meeting and helped there. then, on the spur of the moment, i went to the greenhouse and took the after school free horticulture class and made a concrete stepping stone and learned about concrete and some design stuff. i went to barnes and nobles to research books on photoshop, and i went to austin's baseball game. he is continuing to be a total shit right now, so these things are good. i am trying to reconnect with things i like, as i seem to be treading water in the household sewer right now. anyway, i thought this was a bit positive and i am pasting it down and passing it on.

Feeling Our Life - Finding Our Life’s Work
Sometimes it takes us the better part of a lifetime to discover our life’s work, even though we may have been doing it our whole lives without necessarily realizing it. Our life’s work is not always what we do to make money, although we often think it should be, and sometimes this way of thinking prevents us from seeing clearly what it is. It may be the work of having children, caring for them, and running a household. The way we know our life’s work is by how we feel when we are doing it. When we are doing our life’s work, we feel an uncanny sense of ease and alignment. This doesn’t mean that the work is always easy, and it doesn’t mean that it’s the only work we have to do; it just means that there is a conviction deep inside us that tells us we are in tune with our innermost self. When we are engaged in our life’s work, our bodies feel more alive, because our energy is devoted to a cause that, in turn, feeds us. We may be tired after engaging in our life’s work, but we are almost never depleted. We feel grounded in the world, knowing that we belong here and have something important to offer. When we are deeply unhappy, depressed, or subject to one illness after another, this may be due to a sense of disconnection from our life’s work. At times like these, finding the work we are meant to do is an essential act of healing. Most of us remember a time when we felt fully engaged in some act of work, service or creativity, and it is here that we may rediscover the work we are meant to do now. On the other hand, it may be time to explore what inspires us through volunteering, taking a class, going back to school, or just doing whatever it is we long to try. We all have callings, and when we find them, we owe it to ourselves to nurture and protect them, because while they may or may not be our livelihood, they are the keys to our wellbeing.

how to deal with disappointment with man...

i am having, again, a total exasperation with humanity in general. why do people have to act so badly to each other? why are we so totally self-centered so much of the time? how do people live with what they do and not feel any guilt? how do the junta leaders in myanmar live with themselves? over 28,000 people dead from a cyclone, bodies bloated and rotting, people dying of typhoid. and they refuse help from the united nations and the u.s.a., and they kick people out of the schools that were being used as shelters so they could have a vote on the constitution that would take even more rights away from the people? how can anyone justify that kind of action and sleep well at night?
why won't hillary clinton quit? what can she gain other than making more and more people divide in this country? how can she get up in the morning with a clear conscience? why doesn't she see that her personal need for power shouldn't trump what is best for the country?
why do kids talk rudely to adults? why do people simply buy gifts for mother's day, birthdays, christmas and think because they bought SOMETHING that is means anything?
on the daily OM today there was a way to address this. i think things have a reason for popping up in my life, like angel pennies, when i need them. this seems to fit the bill...

May 12, 2008 In The World And In Ourselves Feeling Fed Up With Humanity
From time to time, we may all feel fed up with humanity, whether it's from learning about what's going on around the world, or what’s going on next door. There are always situations that leave us feeling as if people are simply not capable of behaving in a way that is coming from a place of awareness. Often it seems as if people are actually geared to handle things in the worst possible way, repeatedly. At the same time, none of us wants to linger in a judgmental mood about our own species. As a result, we might tend to repress the feelings coming up as we take in the news from the world and the neighborhood. It is natural to feel let down and disappointed when we see our fellow humans behaving in ways that are greedy, selfish, violent, or uncaring, but there are also ways to process that disappointment without sinking into despondency. As with any emotional response, we honor our feelings by feeling them fully, without judging or acting on them. Once we've done that—and we may need to do it every day, as part of our daily self-care—we can begin to consider ways that we might help the situation in which humanity finds itself. As always, we start with ourselves, utilizing our awareness of the failings of others to renew our own commitment to be more conscious human beings. We are all capable of the best and the worst that humanity has to offer, and remembering this keeps us in check, as well as allowing us to find compassion for others. We may find ourselves feeling compelled to serve people who are suffering injustices at the hands of other people, or we may begin to speak out when we see something that we don’t think is right. Whatever the case, the only thing we can do is pledge to serve the best, rather than the worst, of what humanity has to offer, both in the world, and in ourselves.

new look, part II

well, after an all night marathon of blogging heaven, i can say that i have achieved some level of understanding of html code and how to make a header all my own! this has been quite inspirational. i don't know when the last time was that i stayed up until almost 5 a.m., but work i did. hope you like the new look. i am designing other "looks" with the other headers that i made, and i will change the looks periodically depending on my mood!

you might be a school employee if...

...you believe the playground should be equipped with a Ritalin salt lick
....you want to slap the next person who says, "Must be nice to work 8 to 3:30 and have your summers off ."
....it is difficult to name your own child because there's no name you can
come up with that doesn't bring high blood pressure as it is uttered
....you can tell it's a full moon or if it going to rain, snow, hail....anything!!! Without ever looking outside
....you believe, "shallow gene pool" should have its own box on a report card
....you believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, "Boy, the kids sure are mellow today."
....when out in public, you feel the urge to snap your fingers at children you do not know and correct their behavior
....you have no social life between August and June
....you think people should have a government permit before being allowed to reproduce
....you laugh uncontrollably when people refer to the staff room as the "lounge."
....you encourage an obnoxious parent to check into charter schools or home schooling and are willing to donate the UHAUL boxes should they decide to move out of district
....you think caffeine should be available in intravenous form
....you can't imagine how the ACLU could think that covering your students chair with Velcro and then requiring uniforms made out of the corresponding Velcro could ever be misunderstood by the public
....meeting a child's parent instantly answers the question, "Why is this kid like this?"
....you would choose a mammogram over a parent conference
....you think someone should invent antibacterial pencils and crayons...and desks and chairs for that matter!!!

"We are angels with but one wing, and to fly we must embrace each other"

new look...!

i have been playing with trying to get a 3rd column on this. i finally found some instructions and tonight have been tweaking the blog. i now have 3 columns, but they aren't placed where i want them. soooo...back to the html board...i hope to get the blog posts in the middle and to bracket it with the 2 columns. i thought that was what i was doing, but apparently some piece of code is wrong. anyway, this is a new start. eventually, i hope to have new background and a better header, something more personal and designed by me. we'll se...

fortunate friday!

my former student, maddie, has a THANKFUL THURSDAY where she once a week list things she is thankful for. i missed thursday somehow, and now it is friday, so today were are having FORTUNATE FRIDAY!

no headaches this week i did have one a couple of days ago, and decided to break down and try drinking caffeine to get rid of it. so i drank about an inch and a half of suzanne hall's "jet fuel" that is disguised as coffee, and, lo and behold, the headache went away! i am still a bit skeptical, but it worked and that is good. another trick in the pretty empty bag of headache cures...

verizon finally sent me a check for the money they have owed me since january... well, what a pleasant shock. and i had just quit thinking that i couldn't move that mountain. apparently someone took pity on me. they wacked my checking account BY MISTAKE for over $600 in january and then set a new record for ineptness and ignorance. one idiot forgot to flip a switch on austin's new cell phone when we transferred from one physical phone to another. that meant they charged for the text messages...WRONG. long story short...they decided to "credit" my account. well, that certainly pays for groceries, doesn't it? they have an intricate and torturous system that is designed to wear you down to a totally nub, the idea being that if you are worn out and befuddled, you will stop demanding your money.
apparently, there is a telephone god somewhere. the check is for $327.

i don't teach seniors...oh how fortunate i am! talk about wondering who will be pushing your wheel chair at the nursing home...these kids...geez. i have visions of flying down a hill and crashing because one of these self-centered, brain dead and unengaged wing-wangs didn't put the brake on the chair...because no one told her she had to do it. common sense...gone with the wind.

austin's batting average: .750 going into tonight's game, which was another on the field disaster. he did get a hit, and went 1-3 and did get to play a little at 3rd base. unfortunately, it wasn't enough, as we lost, again, to hanover. he is sitting downstairs, disgusted and grumpy, but he has done well and i have a lot of hope for the team in the future. not this year...it has been not a good year with coaches, parents, and disgruntled everyone. i stay out of it and drink my tea and keep my mouth shut.

seeing former students and getting hugs: both of the newcombs (bryan back from sweden and his sister, jessie), both vanleeuwen girls (triest and maddie) and the rainock girls (lorel and lenore)

hamburgers and hot dogs cooked outside: i had concession duty tonight and spent my 2 hours cooking on the grill. i now smell like what i sold. nothing like smokey hair to make you happy! i bet if there had been dogs around, i would have been the most popular person at the field!

good neighbors: bruce and amy are lots of fun and are a great help. i hung out with them eating their leftovers from john's party on saturday and we had fun conversation. i don't have much adult conversation about anything, so this was a treat. amy has ferried me back and forth this week to the various car dealerships so i could get both of my vehicles fixed.