Changes Push Through like a Storm

At the end of last week, I had major changes in my life. It’s been interesting and will take some time to get used to. Many of you who know me, know that for the past  8 years, I’ve run a video production company. It’s a full-time job with wonderful monetary returns as well as great emotional high for the wonderful people that I work with. The problem that I encountered with it, was that it wasn’t a steady paycheck. It actually came in waves. If you’ve ever experienced that, you understand how difficult it can be. Bills pile up until a payment comes in and then that payment is used in full to pay those bills. That leaves precious little for things like food, gas for the car and other necessities for the family. As a result, this major change arrived in my life. I haven’t given up my video production which is still a wonderful part of my life, and I haven’t given up writing. Instead, I’ve procured a new job. A full-time job with a company outside of my house. So now, 40 hours each week will require my presence elsewhere while I’m still working on my full-time video and part-time writing job. It’s going to be interesting. What’s going to be the most challenging of all of this will be working on time management. I’ve never had to really manage my time like this. I’ve had the pleasure of being able to make my own schedule without regard to another employer’s schedule. 

My family was all for my change at first, but now they’re beginning to realize how much they’ve come to rely on my flexible schedule for transportation on a daily basis. I can’t provide that now and ,in fact, we need to begin some financial planning so that we can purchase a second car. It turns out that no matter what changes happen in life, there will be parts to which we need to adapt. Good points and not so good. But this is life, isn’t it? 

Life brings us surprises and changes each and every day. Some good changes and some not so good. These changes help us grow stronger and learn to adapt to each new day in our lives. Change, to me, is not something that should be feared, but something to be embraced. I embrace every change that comes my way and learn from them all. Learn to do this and your life will change for the better. I expect that it may get stressful, but I’m going to try hard to not let it get that way. Look around and be the one to make a change. When you do, keep the momentum going so that your life will always be filled with surprises!

Adding a New Chapter When You're Older

Adding a New Chapter When You're Older

We all go through change. It’s inevitable. No one experiences a life of no change. This past week I realized that it was time for a change, and because change needed to occur, and because I wanted to have control over that change, I went about doing my best to create it by applying for jobs all over town. Yes, that’s right, the change that I needed to have happen was an increase in base income. Now don’t get me wrong, our household income has been pretty good for years. We can pay all of our bills, make our rent payments on time, and even go to a movie from time to time. But the place that we couldn’t focus our money was in our savings account. Yup, the time had come to begin padding that monster.

Now, I’m not as young as I used to be, and to make things worse, I’ve worked for myself for over eight years. As most people do, I looked at the worse case scenario and pictured that no one would contact me. No one. But because I’m a positive person, I decided to canvas my area with job applications. Eight years ago, when I was working for someone else, applications were submitted at the business. Now, things are different. I can sit at home and apply for jobs all over town. I can see who’s hiring without even walking out the front door. So I did both. I applied for five jobs and guess what? I got phone calls back from four of them asking me to come in for an interview. I was curious about the fifth one because it was, actually, the one I was hoping to get the most. It was the movie theatre down the road. Cinemark. I went it to follow-up on the application. I went to the cashier and told her that I was here to follow-up on an application. She got on her radio and started talking in low tones and actually walked away from me, only looking back from time to time as she spoke. After several minutes, she said, “Someone will be with you in a minute.” I felt odd about the fact that the cashier, even though she had nothing else to do, continued to stay out of sight. The woman that came out was probably in her twenties. She walked straight up to me and said that she had gone through my application and I seemed to be overqualified. I told her that I just needed a steady paycheck and had always wanted to work there. She then told me that she couldn’t give me enough hours. It suddenly seemed to me that she was coming up with excuses, and I had to wonder if it was because I wasn’t the median age (about 22) of the others working there. When she told me that I wasn’t a good fit, I pretty much knew that was the case, even though she said that she would keep my application for a year. (Wondering to myself how I would be less qualified in a year, lol.) Oddly enough, Target had just offered me a job as an over-qualified cashier, and Old Navy asked me to be an over qualified sales person. So, a little grumpy, I left but knew that something better would come up.

Sure enough, I ended up getting a really cool position with, of all people, Macy’s. So, it worked out for the best. But still, the fact that someone didn’t want me to work for them because of my age was a little off-putting. I’ll still take my family there, but not cool Cinemark.

So, my change is underway. Monday I go in for training. Looking forward to see how this will help my writing, and I know that it will. The main point being, don’t let anything dissuade you from making a change or reaching a goal when you know that it’s the thing to do. In the meantime, perhaps I’ll see you at Macy’s!

Another Fall Day in Alternative, Colorado

Another Fall Day in Alternative, Colorado

This weekend, I went for a walk early in the morning and I could definitely feel a change in the air. There was frost in a few spots on the grass and for the first time this year, I could see my breath. The leaves are certainly feeling the changes and the colors are beautiful.

I didn’t think that I’d see anyone else out at this time on a Saturday morning, as most of the people who live here seem to enjoy sleeping in, or at least they don’t leave their houses until the sun is well in the sky, but today was different. Today, as I walked down the street toward the park, I glanced over at the house I was passing and saw Mrs. Harper in her rocking chair with a crocheted wrap around her. She was rocking back and forth and just looking out at the morning and the horizon. The sun hadn’t come up just yet and the clouds were a beautiful and bright orange which glowed against the varying shades of blue in the sky.

Mrs. Harper was in her late seventies and loved to head down to the Senior Center every Thursday evening to meet up with her friends in the Alternative book club, where they would spend a quiet half and hour reading the latest book chosen by the President of the club, Barb Walton. Barb liked romance novels and some months when she felt a little daring, she would choose a mystery novel for everyone to read. After the half an hour was up, they would all see where they were in the book and then discuss the finer points such as what the author must have been thinking when he or she wrote this or that. They would also find time to discuss how Alternative compared to the setting in the current book and who was the most like certain characters. There was one time when Barb and Greta Thompson argued for almost two days about who was the most like the heroine in The Alaska Valley Ranch telling each about long lost romances and strengths that each of them had that compared to the protagonist. Eventually, Barb won out as she always seemed to do, feeling would be hurt for a while until Barb would take the club out to a special lunch and honor one of the members. Of course this particular month Greta was the one being honored. Barb encouraged the entire club to lavish her with compliments and accolades and by the end of the evening, she was feeling much better about things. 

Barb was the kind of person that you wanted to try and keep happy. She had money, left to her by her late third husband, and she was more than happy to invest that money in things that she felt were worthy of the effort it took to write the check and several people vied for that money with promises of great inventions or the first ever to do this or that. Barb had seen them all. The one person that Barb couldn’t get to, however, was Mrs. Harper. I didn’t know her first name and I sometimes wondered if anyone did. Everyone that spoke with her, including Barb, called her Mrs. Harper. She kept to herself and was very soft spoken Some people said that she was a princess from some country in South America at one time and that her coming to Alternative was to escape her fallen kingdom which was taken over by a small dissident group of rebellious military rebels. But no one could prove it. Mrs. Harper nodded at me and called out, “How are you and the family?”

I told her that they were fine and asked about her. She simply smiled and nodded and then nodded toward the sky. “I love to watch the sun come up in the morning. Do you know why, young man?”

I shook my head because I wanted to her what this woman had to say.

“The sunrise is different every morning. The sky looks and does what it wants every day and doesn’t care what onlookers think. It is what it is and will only change according to what it wants to do. People should be more like that, don’t you think?”

I looked to see the sun just peeking over the horizon. When I turned back, Mrs. Harper was just heading back into her house, but not before turning back and giving a small queen’s wave and a slight smile. If you looked closely, you could see a glint in her eye just as she vanished into the house.

There were no others like her in Alternative, ever before and there would never be again.

I've Got Mail

I’ve Got Mail

Years ago, before the advent of Email, we would walk down to the mailbox and pull out letters from friends, bills, advertisements and of course, junk mail.

Now, most of my mail, I’m sure like yours, is on my computer. Don’t get me wrong, I still go to my mailbox 6 days each week, with some excitement to see what the mailman has brought. Truth be told, I actually enjoy going to the physical mailbox more than sitting down to look on my computer. You might be experiencing the same syndrome. Let’s see.

When the mailman would come to my mailbox and deliver junk mail, it was actually fun. Even if I didn’t order anything, there was a lot of imagination in the ads that were delivered. It was great being able to look through and see what I could have if I wanted. Now, junk mail has taken on a whole other meaning.

This week, I’ve been told that my Amazon points have changed by numerous people that I don’t know, even though I don’t have any Amazon points.

I have apparently been chosen by the Email gods to win more money than I ever thought possible from lotteries in countries around the world.

Those I can deal with,

I’ll also been delivered 23 viruses and one of my addresses was hacked by someone wanting to pay others big dollars to work from home. So junk mail is now something that can steal your identity, your reputation and attempt to destroy your work. Why would people do this?

The junk mail of my younger days is gone and now I’m trying to figure out why nameless and faceless people would do what they could to sabotage my life. Of course I take precautions and no one has stolen anything or destroyed my work, other than apparently, one email address that may or may not have been compromised.

In the end, I tighten security. I check frequently. I resign myself to the fact that days gone by are just that.

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