I haven’t been posting lately and I had every intention of getting to work early in order to pound out some tidbits, but before I even left the house I got an urgent email from one of my account managers. Someone I placed two weeks ago just got fired and they wanted to see some of my subcontractors.

So I rolled into work and got caught up in a discussion with the account manager from which I went to my office and called my vendor. In my own gentle way, I yelled at him. I didn’t lose it like I did last December when I got in a car accident (that is still embarrassing to me) but I knew exactly what I was going to say and I said it. That isn’t typical for me. I like to hear people out and give them the benefit of the doubt. But I didn’t lose my temper at all and I suppose that is what really makes the difference. I totally lost my temper when my car got hit because I was so very scared. I respect this vendor and we’re sort of friends in a working way. Oh and it wasn’t his person who got fired. Nope. That was all my doing. I was really cheering for this kid and now I won’t really be able to get him an interview again since he’d already been to all of our clients when we finally got an offer for him. Shoot.

Moving on to a regular post, we had a heck of a storm yesterday morning. Trees bent over and things being blown into windows. Naturally this crazy storm hit just as the peonies bloomed, so until they dry out, they look pounded. It doesn’t sound like we’re going to dry out any time soon. The weatherman this morning said he’d been flipping through the ads looking for a canoe. Very funny. Another person up in Parkersburg, IA just died. An older person named Bertha whose injuries finally claimed her life.

I met with a young man on Saturday morning. His name is Ryan and he is dating our pastor’s youngest daughter up at Bethel, in the cities. I ended up talking to this kid for two hours and I had a great conversation with him. He got his degree last December in Media Communications and so we talked about some of the problems we was encountering in his interviews and how he could take control of his job search. I listened a lot and hoped he would find a lot of his own answers before adding my old-person advice to the pile. Then we started talking about writing.

He reminded me so much of myself after I graduated. I got that journalism degree, but I didn’t actually have a burning desire to work in a newsroom - a little desire for the deadlines and excitement was there, but not enough to fall in love with the idea. I wrote publicity for the university, but looking back I see that I didn’t necessarily feel it. I’m so glad I went into sales and I’m glad I do what I do now. We talked about that. We talked about how your degree doesn’t have to define what you do for a living and how I use some to most of what I learned in school every day in my job. He suggested I read some books by his favorite author Anne Lamott, so I went to the library and got her book, Bird by Bird. I love it. I’m hooked. She’s funny and rude and she’s right about writing. My dad would have liked this book.

Michelle brought Aubree to church on Sunday morning after they got out of church. Michelle always drives past our church to see if Aubree will ask to come in. Usually she stays for Sunday School, which I think gives Michelle a nice little break to go home and be alone. Aubree’s hair is growing longer. They’ve always kept it short, but it is now long enough to be in pigtails. She’s so cute, but she’s like her Aunt Caron. She’s reserved at first, even with people she knows. Thank goodness she only weighs 30 pounds because I carry her around and make sure her friends see that she is there. Then we run into Sara who isn’t the least little bit shy and who probably thinks it is ridiculous for me to be carrying Aubree. Sara is good peer pressure in that regard – I hope they hang together in school next year.