the problem with holidays...

I thought we were on good terms, at least good enough to visit with the grandkids.

One call on Saturday, uninviting us all from a new year's trip derailed the whole thing.

Without a doubt, the call with a voice ragged with anger was made in the heat of an argument...and I was caught in the wake. Still. How could I in good conscience decide to bring kids into that atmosphere? Why would I want to rain some of the patterns of my Christmas past down on them?

As I've said before, we all have our sack of rocks. Some days the bag becomes too heavy to hold and we feel like flinging the contents around...

4 day work weeks a reality...be careful of what you wish for

So...I just found out that a former action hero has put all civil service workers in my state on a 2 day a month furlough. Even though I said that I wanted a 4 day work week, I wanted it to be at my own choosing. But the universe choses to listen to things at the strangest junctures.

So now...I want to make the best of it. Starting my company holds the highest priority right now.

1. fictitious business name to-be-filed
2. newspaper circulation to-be-filed
3. bank account set up
4. paypal account set up
5. bed out of office - it has to go.
6. basic editorial schedule to-be-developed.
7. figure out how to combine existing twitter & blogs
8. New Year's postcard mailer - (email/ hard copy) sent out announcing the business.
   

I love 4 day work weeks...

Coming off a 4 day mini-holiday. Got sick, got better, got a lot of stuff done. I know there's a recession/depression but dang...I love only working 3 days a week. OK so it's not feasible for me to do that right now unless I worked 10 hour days. My sup is never going to go for that.

But, I can work it so that maybe I have only a 4 day work week. That I can afford and I think for my sanity, I'm going for it. My industriousness at home goes way up...so does my creativity. Maybe that'll make me want to spend less money. I've seen it documented that being a wage slave truly does increase one's need to spend in direct correlation with dispair.

Willing to give it a go.

I'm hungry

Just a quickie as right about now I should be getting ready for the boring income producing marathon (a.k.a. work). Yesterday I went to another town to pick up something that I'd ordered and I fell in love. Not with a person but with the town.

Living where I live, in a highly urban enclave where the central operating principle is more commonly the response to crime rather than quality of life, it was so refreshing, so mouthwatering even (think about the difference between a nice juicy 1 pound cheeseburger on a white bread bun from your local burger shack and say a dinner at a 4 star restaurant that consisted of a perfect truffle-infused sliver of salmon with a clutch of baby heirloom carrots and zucchini on a buttery pool of polenta). Both meals one would look forward to but the latter is smaller, more exquisite and more expensive. One might be hungry after the latter unless one adjusted one's expectations; poorer too.

So back to my beloved town. It shares all of those qualities of the salmon meal, in that it is transcendent and beautifully sublime and will require sacrifice. But I think to aspire to live there is like waiting for a perfect meal rather than settling for a merely hearty one.

I cannot afford to shift to eating heavenly fish right now (my appetites are too voracious) but indeed I have something to aspire to.