Preparing for the New Year

I'm probably going to do more than one post today....I had a treatment yesterday and Decadron makes me spin out of control....a steroid which makes you feel like you are on speed, disrupts your sleep cycle and then after three days you crash.

Over on the Quilt Art list, everyone is talking about their "word" for the coming year. This is supposed to be a word which inspires them and keeps them focusing on a particular aspect of their lives and work....or at least it is supposed to.

Last year, I chose "Discipline." Well....I have to tell you, that went right out the window along with all of my other "resolutions." I find them awfully hard to continue with and it ends up being frustrating for me...and trust me, I am full of frustrations and don't need anymore.

I suppose that a prudent solution, if I had my back up against the wall and HAD to choose, it should probably be something like "BE". Be as good as I can and strive for better...but if you don't that's OK....just Be. Be you. Be progressive...be whatever you want to be in that moment.

Perhaps"BE" also could have an element of discarding that which is unhealthy and up-helpful. I have an incredible memory. I always have. I can remember things which happened when I was REALLY young (like about 15 months old....granted some of them are like snapshots...random things I saw and remembered. Seeing is important....I have an almost photographic memory....not completely...but, for instance, when I read something...sometimes all I have to do is picture the page where I read it....I then see, in my minds eye, the paragraph and what it said...and I remember it. Not completely...but more than enough. My husband's cousin Lourdes has something similar...we both bemoaned the fact that you remember everything....the good and the bad and sometimes the bad is seared into your brain...even if it is not really bad and is just sort of stupid...comments, things you wished you had done differently or didn't handle with aplomb. Perhaps the word "Be" would then allow you to jettison those negative aspects and just look at it and say. " Oh yeah. That's in the past. Over and done with...can't be changed and probably didn't amount to a hill of beans anyway."

For instance....one thing which has come to mind lately and makes me cringe greatly is something that happend in about 1984 or so. I was 23 or 25, working in my first job as the shared director of two small historical societies. I would work 2 days a week (theorhetically) in one society, and 3 days in the other and switch every six months. I don't recommend it. However, I had been "adopted" by a local man who was pretty down to earth. I think I probably adopted me because I went to William and Mary, as did he and his wife and all his children. He often came in and he taught me a lot about the town and showed me stuff and introduced me to a lot of interesting people.

Where Jack was down to earth, his wife was pretty ....well...refined. I wouldn't say elegant, as her style was more sporty...active tennis player, always well dressed, but casually. She grew up in the mid-Atlantic states and was a really nice lady....one who thought before she spoke....

She came into the museum one day and looked really good....out of my mouth came "Wow, you look really fat and sassy today!"....and old farm girl saying...coming out of the mouth of the young farm girl to the woman who was her superior in every way and old enough to be her mother....I remember the brief pause as she looked at me....before she said something...and I don't even remember what it was...but that pause and the feeling of my face turning red has stayed with me ever since.

I don't know how you jettison those thoughts...and this is one which verges on the absolutely silly. She probably doesn't remember it....if she is still alive....So...maybe "Be" would have just the ability to soften that...to accept who you are and where you are and look at what is done as done....

However, I would like to take in the mantras of "Put it away while it is still in your hand" and..."do it now." I don't know how I'll be at those either.

And now for a sneaking little bit for those of you living in the United States. Did you know there is going to be a postal increase???? I got word from my on-line mailing service that I would have to download and update because the postal rates were going up. I went into the post office on Tuesday and asked the clerk about it. He knew nothing of any postal rates going up. He told me the the first class regular mail was proposed to go up, but was shot down.

Today, I did a search on this....as it wasn't on the USPS website and one of the things I read somewhere (not the USPS but a second party...like a newspaper or something) said that the rates were going up but to look for the information on the website as of Jan. 1. Well, Poooh. I needed to know if I need to hustle and get the rest of my packages sent to my mom and nieces. So...in researching it, I found that the basic first class letter wasn't going up, but that oversized cards and envelopes WAS going up as is First class parcels (remember, anything over 13 ounces has to go Priority mail, unless you bump it down to Parcel post and in some cases, priority mail is CHEAPER than parcel post...so use your postage calculator on the USPS website to figure that out.

Sneaky, huh?