At the beginning of your life story

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Carol Early Cooney

When my children were little, I tried to impress upon them how important they are to each other. I talked to them about how their sibling is the one person that will always know the beginning of their story.  In their case, the one other person who will know about the characters that inhabited their lives growing up.

I am thankful that my children seem to have absorbed this lesson. It makes me feel good when I find out how often they talk to one another.

I know that when my Mother was alive that she was gratified when her kids would get together. She was so happy that we could all laugh and kid and talk to one another.

I find that part of my story is going to leave me. My brother is going to die very soon. He is sick and is not going to survive. It brings home the knowledge that our lives can be too short and that we need to make sure that those close know how we feel.

You see, I have been angry with my brother for the last few years. I have not been angry enough that words were exchanged but our communications were certainly not as frequent. It did not help the situation when he told me that he thought I was might be angry with him and he did not contact me to “clear the air.”

In case you are ever in this situation, let me give you a hint. If you know that a person might be mad at you and you don’t try and fix it, do not tell them that you thought that they might be mad but you didn’t do anything. It just makes it worse.

Even though I knew that my brother was going to die, I was still angry with him. I was holding on to my anger. I knew that I should let it go. I decided (perhaps with some prodding) that I had to at least act like I wasn’t angry and go see him.

I will tell you that when I went and it was obvious that there was not much time left for him, I knew that my anger did not make a difference.

This was not a miracle change of heart. I still think that what he did was wrong but in the scope of being right and losing him, the most important thing is that I am going to lose him. And I am so sad about that. He will no longer be my fellow trouble maker at the family dinner table. The brother I could look at and be fairly sure we were thinking the same terrible thoughts. The one I would laugh with when we shouldn’t be laughing.

When I was with him that day, we talked about the neighborhood where we grew up. We talked about neighbors. Since he is older than I am, he remembered different things and people in some cases. He did remember that I had broken the neighbors gazing ball and we did a short synopsis of family stories about him. In other words, we shared part of our joint life story.

After I returned home from that visit, I thought about how my anger with him was not important anymore. The important thinking was that he would be gone and I would miss him.

And part of my story will be forever lost.

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Music to Work By

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Carol Early Cooney

Do you have music that inspires you?  Does it change or is it the same music that has inspired you for years?

I have some music that I play when I need to get down to work.  I think that it started when I was young. I can still see my parent’s record player in my mind.  It was wooden and it looked like a big wooden box.  You would lift the top and there was the part that played the records.  There was a shelf of albums under the record player.

It was so long ago that it was not stereo.

I appropriated two of the albums.  I would play them when I was sewing.  I don’t have any idea why I picked those albums but I think it was always the same two.

And years later, I had to buy them on cd so that I could listen to them again.  And then I remembered how they would get my mind ready for work.  I now play them when I am having trouble settling in to get something done.

Yesterday, I discovered that when I changed computers that my iTunes music was not transferred to my new computer.  It was so odd to go to iTunes and find it empty.  I will have to transfer it from my old computer to the new one sometime.  I have music from Amazon that I seem to listen to most of the time.

But this morning, I am having trouble settling in to get work done.  My mind is going a million different ways and does not want to settle down.  But it really needs to settle down.

And then I remembered the music.  I can depend on it to get me working.  Of course, it had been loaded on my iTunes years ago.  Now, I could go and download music from my old computer but that seems like I would be just delaying work again.  And I am willing to bet that it would not go as smoothly as it should and I would lose more time.  So, I looked at the stacks of old cds and found my two old favorites.

In a quick minute, I loaded them on this computer and I can once again start working.  Both cds are from Broadway shows.  One has been made into a movie and I have never seen the movie.  I have a vague idea what that show is about but the other, I have no idea of the plot.  Yes, I can sing the songs without hesitation but I don’t know exactly what the songs refer to in the show.

Are you wondering what the shows are?

The first is Fiddler on the Roof.  Famous, right?  I have never seen it.  I just know the music.  I can guess the plot that goes along with the music.  The second show is a bit more obscure, I think.  The name is The Roar of the Greasepaint – the Smell of the Crowd.  I have no idea what the play was about but I know that the music is part of my life. 

Do you have music that transports you to a place where you can work or relax or read?  Please let me know in the comment section what music moves you and how it moves you.

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Kirby

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Carol Early Cooney

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Our beloved dog, Mae, died.  She was the kid’s first dog and she had been a faithful companion.  We missed her terribly.

After a short mourning period, we went to a shelter – “just to look”.  In case you don’t know, I think it is just about impossible to go to a shelter “to just look”.  We were looking at one dog but it became evident that, while adorable, that dog was going to be a bit more than we were ready to handle.

Then, like we were making a drug deal, one of the workers whispered “I have the dog for you.”  How could we refuse?  We checked him out and he seemed wonderful.  He had only been at the shelter for a day or two.

In our moment of blind love, it seems that we had picked the dog with the longest and thickest hair at the shelter.  Little did I know what life would be like with this dog in the house.

We named him Kirby.  We named him after the brand of vacuum that we had at the time.

With this dog, I have to vacuum and vacuum often.  While he does lose individual hairs, he mostly loses clumps of hair.  Did I tell you that he all that he is black?  When you look around my house, you can see clumps of hair – it looks like Barbie doll heads of hair tumbling through the place.  I really didn’t know that it could be like this.  I think that when he goes to doggie heaven (Chocolate and Milk Bone Way) I will be cleaning up dog hair for the next ten years.  I have found dog hair in the ice cube trays.  Really, how did it get there?

There is no way to brush this dog in the house – the amount of hair that he can shed would cover the floor and furniture in no time.  You know, sitting on a dog hair covered sofa isn’t like sitting on a mink blanket.  We did buy a dog brush that hooks up to the vacuum.  It does contain some of the hair but there is still a massive vacuuming session when we use it.

When we adopted him, we were his third home in three years.  Gee, others had returned him when they caught on to his hair loss.  Okay, there may have been a couple other issues.

He had obviously had some problems with prior owners.  While most dogs don’t mind being put into a crate, he was NOT doing that.  He also had an aversion to teenage girls.   Not all the time, just sometimes.  Yes, at the time we had a teenage girl.

He was also a counter surfer.  This was not anything we had encountered before.  He got several pounds of butter, some chocolate miniatures, and about a dozen chocolate chip cookies before he trained us.  But, please note that I said he was a counter surfer.  This behavior disappeared after a couple of months.  We didn’t really do anything, I think he finally felt safe and believed that we would feed him.

He is, unquestionably, a guard dog.  He has decided that his role is to guard the house and to guard me.  He is a bit nicer when he is guarding me.  He will let my husband kiss me when he comes home but only after Kirby runs interference by standing in-between us.  As he has aged, he spends more time close to me.  As I write this, he is alternating sleeping and staring at me.

Kirby got out of the yard once.  My husband had that feeling of panic.  He had no idea where to look for him.  He walked to the front of the house and started looking around.  He found him – sitting on the front porch.  Kirby has defined his territory and he is keeping to it.  He is here to protect this house and he is not budging from his post.

His guarding of the house has its high points and has led to a couple of problems.  I do think he would scare away anyone who tried to get in the house.  He sounds fierce.  He growls, he barks, and generally gives off the impression that he would like nothing better than to attack.

The problem is that occasionally we like to take vacations.  We can’t get anyone to take care of him when we want to go away.  We have tried having our friends or our friend’s kids come over to let him out and feed him.  No way.  He has scared off every one of them.  The only brave soul is our neighbor.  Our neighbor has fed Kirby milk bone treats over the fence for years.  This has not made a difference to Kirby.  Luckily, Tim is a very patient guy and he just waits and Kirby will finally concede that he does need to go out.

This behavior is not limited to someone coming in while we are gone.  He will greet people enthusiastically when we are here.  If we leave and the person stays, he will sit by the front door and glare and growl.  In case you were wondering, workmen love that.  Nothing suits them better than to work in a house where the dog suddenly acts like he will eat them.

We realized the other day that Kirby is now 14 years old.  That is pretty old for a dog of his size.  His muzzle is white now.  His back legs seem to slide out from underneath him sometimes.  He has the occasional seizure.   We swear that we will not replace him when he goes to Chocolate and Milk Bone Way.

We could always “just go look” at the shelter.

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Wordless Wednesday

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Carol Early Cooney

Wordless Wednesday

How long do you think it will take this much snow to melt? Will it be in March? April? Or will it take until May?

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10 Tips for Working at Home

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Carol Early Cooney

I love working from home.

I have found that there are some rules that should be followed in order to keep your sanity and be productive.  The following are ten of my rules.

1.  Take a shower and get dressed for the day.  I regret it every time I break it this rule.  It never fails that if I start working before I get dressed, I will get busy and suddenly be late for something or someone will come to the door and I am not dressed.  It is so easy to just start working and think that you will break in a little while to get dressed.  Don’t do it – just get ready for the day.   Take it from my experience and the experience of other people who work at home. 

2.  Set a routine for yourself.  Deciding on a routine will let your brain know that it is time to concentrate on work.  Follow the same routine every work day.  Just like if you were working in a corporate office, you would start the same way each day.  Give your brain the trigger that says “Now it is time for work.”

3.  Work set hours.  The problem with working from home is that you can always  do “one more thing”. It is your work – not your life. If you continue to work all the time, you will come to resent your work.

4.  Work during your work hours.  Do not do the dishes and vacuum during the work day.  Running down to do a load of laundry is not what happens at work.  Respect your work enough to give it the time that you have set up for it.

5. Have a business telephone line. This is not the telephone line that your child answers.This is a line that only you answer.    On my two line phone, I have different ring tones for the different lines.  If you hear the phone playing Pachelbel’s Canon in my house, the business line is ringing.  Up until recently, I also had a separate fax line.  I receive very few faxes these days.  My business phone line will take a fax and then I can hook up my fax machine and print it.  You can also pay for a  service that will send the fax to your computer.  

6.  Answer the telephone in a professional way.  Don’t answer while you are standing in front of the running dishwasher or some other appliance that make a lot of noise. If you have a dog,  be able to keep the sound of his barking out of your phone calls.

7.  Be set up as a real office.  Have office equipment and supplies available.  Treat your business like it is a business. Buy good quality equipment that is suited for your work.  File cabinets can be expensive but look around and you will find used ones available.  The same is true with other office equipment.

8.  Find social outlets.  Join the Chamber of Commerce and attend their functions.  Get out and meet other business people so that you can find new clients and have someone to talk to that knows about doing business in your town.  My Chamber has a monthly function just for people who work at home.  Join a gym or take a class.  Get out and meet people.

9.  Take a lunch break.  Go out lunch sometimes.  You need to get away from your desk and think of something else.  You will come back with a fresher attitude.  Have a sandwich and take a walk.  Shake loose the cobwebs!

10.  Form a great relationship with your bank.  I love my local bank.  I love knowing the person that I am calling when I need help or information.

I have now spent more of my life working from home than I spent in a corporate office.  I have learned that it is not for everyone but  I would not want to work any other way.

My slippers are really comfortable….

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