dixiblog

Make your year count.

Well, even me, the self-proclaimed renouned anti-resolutionist, is thinking about the changes I want to make this year. What’s up with that? Maybe it’s Saturn in Virgo.  I dunno. But I’m feeling it and it feels right, so there you go.

I am pretty happy overall, sure. And I like myself and all that. No real self-recriminations or anything. But there ARE things I’d like to change in my life.

• Less clutter. Getting rid of things that are broken in my life will help, huh? I threw away another sock with a hole in it last night. Ha! I just think it’s funny I have half a dozen or more socks with huge holes in them and cracked ice trays and the like. It’s sorta like I forget that I can, indeed, replace items, and regardless, stuff that doesn’t work properly or frustrates me is worth removing from my life.
• Better focus. I know how to get most of what I want, but sometimes have wavered in my focus.  I’m putting on weight, for one thing!
  
• Changing the nature of my work. I love working for myself and like my clients. I’ve got some cool ones! But I don’t always like what I do. While the monthly web maintenece contracts pay the bills and are not especially oppressive, the work is boring. And design work, which I can usually charge more for,  is stressful for me. I’m talented enough to make a pretty website, but not as gifted as others I’ve seen, and the whole subjectiveness of the process makes it stressful to please clients.  This year, I’ll be looking towards more changes that leave me more time to work on what I enjoy and minimize stressors. I always want to find more ways to give back with my work.
• Which brings me to the next one: Giving back in more significant ways. I want to give more financially, emotionally, and through general support to others. There are countless ways to do this, and I know I get tremendous amounts of satisfaction from feeling like I’m making a difference. So I want to make more difference!
• Follow-through. Great ideas stay ideas until you act on them. Therein lies the magic.
  
• Taking my own advice. This one is TOUGH, but Hell. I give some pretty good advice sometimes. I’d be much better off if I followed it myself consistently.
• Seeing each moment of dissatisfaction as an opportunity to make something better in my life. If I don’t like it, I can fuckin’ change it, man! These can be curses or gifts, depending on how you process ‘em. I choose gifts. That means for every complaint I have, it needs to be replaced with action.
• Excerise my gratitude muscle. When I’m concious of doing this, my life just feels better. I am operating from a higher vibe, and I am happier. It turns my perpsecitve into technocolor when I see all there it to be grateful for. After the rough year so many of us have had, some prismatic joy is well worth the workout here.

 These are the types of resolutions I can live with, because they’re not about ways I feel like I don’t measure up, but more focused on what I’d like to enhance in my experience.

Wishing much joy and peace to all in 2009!

photo credit: Andy Woo

holiday coffee

Three things I’m grateful for right now:

• Fuzzy socks and pants
• a little perspective–perhaps very litte? but I take what i can find graciously
• having people around me who love me.

Hermit

“So, what do you want to do for New Year’s Eve?” I asked, a little nervously. I don’t know why I get nervous. It’s not like the man is going to freak because I say something about plans…god, no! But I do feel nervous most of the time I suggest we go out.

He…well, my husband doesn’t like to go out much. I sometimes joke it takes “an act of God” to get him out of the house, which isn’t strictly accurate, but not entirely fictional, either.

I used to get upset, that he didn’t like to go out and do things. So it became a source of tension. He’d get tense, waiting for me to get upset, I guess. That’s probably why I still feel it. I took it personally, like he didn’t want to go anywhere with me. Maybe I wasn’t fun to go out with? Or he was embarrassed by me? I dunno. I just took it personally.

It’s not. His not wanting to go out–especially after working at a job he commutes to and driving around during the day to boot–doesn’t have to do with me. But I haven’t always been able to compute that.

Fact is, he WOULD go out with me. Then and now, for that matter. I know that. But who wants to make someone go out with you who doesn’t want to? I wanted him to want to, and that isn’t something I could dictate. Hell. It’s not something he could dictate himself.

more…

Ho ho ho!

“Well, no. Not really. Not if I didn’t start early and don’t have time.”  It’s not like he could profess a love of Xmas shopping at this point. As in, duh. “I was going to tomorow, after work,” he tells me.

more…

I am not big on resolutions, and have, on several occassions, done annual rants on the evils of resolutions. The last couple years, though, I’ve softened a bit, and this year, I’m making one.

Rub that belly!

I resolve to rid my life of what’s broken. Let go of anything and everything that isn’t serving me well. Socks with holes or leaky ice cube trays that “sorta work” I don’t need. Nor clothes that don’t fit nor junk of any kind. Clutter I don’t need.

But that goes for habits, too. Or thinking patterns. Or work. Or whatever.

If it’s not working for me, I want to “lose” it in 2009. I only want room in my life for that which serves me.  So if it doesn’t serve, I’ll swerve.

Because that’s the only way to make room for better.

Yep.

photo credit: Jeffrey Simms Photography

• i got my catgenie fixed. after calling catgenie tech support. which wasn’t exciting, but effective anyway. it sure is hard to hear mumbling when a catgenie is running in the background.
• i have my shopping done. stuff is either here or en route, and i feel satisfied with christmas plans.
• clients quiet down around this time of year. people are usually thinking about the holidays and not about what they want to do with their website.
• i’m negotiating a new maintenece contract. with people that are nice, as confirmed by their last provider. whom is also a client.
• i still have leftovers in the fridge. no cooking tonight.
• the painkillers i took this morning worked.
• it’s almost christmas.
• it’s the weekend. that means i’ll get to hang out with my honey soon.
• an easy workday.

Happiness is a Choice

 Today, I plan on cleaning out all the personal items from my dead car. I want to be prepared for letting it go, and I believe that’s the best way to clear the way.

A few years ago, I was driving a car I hated. HATED! It was the best I had access to, but  I despised it and was unhappy every time I drove it. It had been wrecked and the steering was wobbly and it was stressful to drive. It was junk. But it was what I had at the time. After a while of this-feeling annoyed every time I got in this thing-I asked myself, “WTF, Dixie? You have this car now, it gets you where you need to go, so why not make the best of it?”

So I did. I got myself some seat covers, I cleaned up the inside, and decided to take a little pride in it and make the best of what I had. And you know, it felt better. I didn’t feel frustrated or annoyed when I got in that car anymore. It felt okay. I changed my attitude and changed my experience.

Well, I’ll be damned if, within about 2 weeks, somebody rear-ended me in that car at a stoplight. Totalled it. We were okay, thank goodness, but the car was toast. Unfixable. The insurance check for this was approximately 4 times as much as the car was worth.  It allowed us to get another, much better car and move on, which we couldn’t have done just trying to sell the old heap I was driving. (My husband called it winning the “white trash lottery.” LOL: not PC, but funny.)

I still believe that showing the old junker a little love and changing my attitude was what allowed me to move on and end up with a newer car shortly thereafter.

Well, I tried to fix up this car. I’ve shown it some love. So now that it’s time for it to move on, I’m actively letting it go. I believe that cleaning out my personal effects is important, and will help pave the way. But I’m funny that way. Doesn’t matter if it’s nuts or not, just so long as it helps me be happy.

Sometimes, I am just an alien. My feelings are raw for no apparent reason, and I feel incapable of connecting to anybody else in my alienness. I still want to, and sometimes try, but it seems like a bad idea. I have no idea of anything I say to anyone makes sense. And if it does, I wonder if it’s a misunderstanding,

Fortunately, that feeling doesn’t usually last too long before I go back to pretending nobody has any opinions on me whatsoever.

Feeling kind of viseral today. And alien. And tired.