I'm Alive

I am so sorry for the long departure but I have not been able to write at work and I can not figure out what is wrong with my Internet at home. I know that is not an excuse but I have really missed everyone and writting. There is so much to say and I don't know where to begin. Let's see I have been traveling lately. I went to Las Vegas to see my favorite band Dave Matthews and I also went to San Diego to see my best friend from Charleston that moved there.

I am single again. I am just taking some time to grow and learn who I am again. Figuring out what is important to me and that is family and friends. I feel like I have let other relationships go because I was so focused on my relationship with my boyfriend. It is time to just be me and to focus on myself. I am a people pleaser and now I just want to please myself. It feels good to sometimes say no. It also feels good to write again.

It was unfortunate because people I knew used my blog against me at work and also my old boyfriend read it and made me feel bad about expressing myself. So I am now back, more alive than ever, and wishing everyone well!

Open Your Heart

I love Dave Matthews. I love his songs but his words can be poetic. I have been a little bummed out lately because someone's negativity and words about others have been too much for me to handle. I look for the good in people but I am having trouble because everything they say is bad. Why are people so negative and hateful. So I started to think that I wish I did not care. I wish that I do not feel so deeply about other people. Why should I care about how someone else treats another person? I don't know why I am being so cheezy this week, but I listened to this song and it is what I want to try and do. Open my heart and instead of looking at all the violence and hatred in the world, I am going to "just look for the love."

Here are the lyrics to one of his songs that brought back and made me realize that I have a gift and should be proud that I can feel so much for others.


Isnt it strange
How we move our lives for another day
Like skipping a beat
What if a great wave should
Wash us all away
Just thinking out loud
Dont mean to dwell on this dying thing
But looking at blood
Its alive right now
Deep and sweet within
Pouring through our veins
Intoxicate moving wine to tears
Drinking it deep
Then an evening spent dancing
Its you and me
This love will open our world
From the dark side you can see a glow
Of something bright
Theres much more than we see here
Dont burn the day away

Is this not enough
The blessed sip of life
Is it not enough
Staring down at the ground
Oh then complain and pray
More from above
Greedy little pig
Stop just watch your world trickle away
Oh its your problem now
Itll all be dead and gone in
A few short years
Just love will open our eyes
Just love will put the hope back in our minds
Much more than we could ever know
Dont burn the day away

Come sister
My brother
Shake up your bones shake up your feet
Im saying open up
And let the rain come pouring in
Wash out this tired notion
That the best is yet to come
But while youre dancing on the ground
Dont think of when youre gone
Love! love! - what more is there?
We need the light of love in here
Dont beat your head
Dry your eyes
Let the love in there
There are bad times
But thats ok
Just look for love in it
Dont burn the day away

Look
Here are we
On this starry night staring into space
And I must say
I feel as small as dust
Lying down here
What point could there be troubling
Head down wondering what will
Become of me
Why concern we cannot see
But no reason to abandon it
Time is short but thats all right
Maybe Ill go out in the middle of the night
Take your hands from your eyes, my love
Everything must come to an end sometime
Dont burn the day away

Come sister
My brother
Shake up your bones shake up your feet
Im saying open up
And let the rain come flooding in
Wash out this tired notion
That the best is yet to come
But while youre dancing on the ground
Dont think of when youre gone
Love! love! - what more is there?
We need the light of love in here
Dont beat your head
Dry your eyes
Let the love in there
There are bad times
But thats ok
Just look for love in it

Unconditional Love

To celebrate Valentine's Day, the one day you loathe when you are single, I am going to talk about love this week. I know that is cheezy but bear with me because I am not going to just talk about love between a couple but love in general. I saw something truly remarkable yesterday. I saw love in the truest simplest form.

I have a salt water fishtank with two clownfish. One of my clownfish was sick and was laying or clinging to a rock at the bottom. The other clownfish was trying to get the fish to swim and helping him stay alive. It was sad because there was one fish dying and it's mate would not leave it's side. He would try to get underneath him to lift him up. It was amazing to think that fish have relationships too. Why would it struggle to keep his friend or mate alive? Why does a fish care about another or do they care. I know these are deep questions and I don't understand why I care so much about this.

I am extremely empathetic meaning I can feel what others feel. I mean I felt my heart sink just thinking of the other fish losing his friend. Not many people feel such a sadness for A FISH!!! I think being empathetic is a good quality in a person but it can suck. I am sensitive to other people's emotions which can be hard for me. When someone is sad, I get sad. When someone is angry I feel for that anger but when someone is happy then I feel a sense of energy or excitement. I know people that seem to be cold hearted. They can be prejudice or say things about others without even knowing the person. This is really hard for me to understand because I feel for other people. So much so someone has told me I would see a child in a serial killer. That is a little extreme but my point is, why can't they try to walk in others shoes. That is what I do everyday so anything that I do to cause pain for others ends up hurting me also.

So this week try and spread the love. Stop and think of what it must feel like to be another person. Walk in someone elses shoes.

Real Life Part 2

Please read part one before this one or you maybe confused.

What I do respect about where I work is how they managed to save some jobs. They cut things like a trip that the heads go to every year, cut down on travel expenses and other things that are a priviledge. I think the trip was especially a big deal because it is something they do every year. It is a bonus for the employee of the year and somewhere where the big wigs get to come together. You hear on the news about other company's during this time have done otherwise. The former head of Merrill Lynch spent over a million on his office. He gave all his people big incintives while he could because Bank of America annouced that they are not doing that because of the way it would look. How could it be moral to accept bail out money then give a big bonus to people. AIG spent all that money to take client's on an expensive trip after accepting bail out money. You hear it all the time in the news but we did not do this. We may not get a big raise but that is across the board and they are doing that in order to save our co-workers. Our division is doing anything they can to make sure people will keep their jobs and I am sure other areas of the bank are doing the same.

So it has been a bad week. After I was told this news, I was called in the office. It seems like I have been consumed with other things and not doing the job I was capable of. I used to be consumed with my work and would do above and beyond my job requirements such as working on the weekends and staying late at night, but I made my work the priority in my life. So much that it would physically drain me and not only my health suffered but it also effected my social life. I got burned out and I also got a serious boyfriend. So when I was upset about something my boyfriend did or I was excited about going on a trip or what I was doing that weekend, my job was pushed to the bottom. I did not leave these things behind. Also there is a person at work that would gossip and so everyone knew what was going on.

I was told that I have let things slip by and what I would have caught before or followed up on was being missed. I had been an exceptional employee and now I was letting my boss down. He used to count on me but now not as much. He knew about my blog and even though he has never seen me blog at work some other people have. So I may not be writing as much at work or reading other people's blogs all the time. I am upset because I let one thing I valued or thought highly about myself because I thought I was a hard worker and did a great job become less of a priority. I was respected and thought highly of by my co-workers but now not so much.

So with things being the way there are now, I am going to kick some butt and gain the respect I have lost. I am going to delegate more work to others because I have not been doing that and was told as a manager it looks bad when I have so much work in my inbox and some of my employees are always on the internet. I am going to be the best employee they have because I know I can do a great job and I want them to think they can not lose me.

Real Life

I think I have lived in a fantasy world. I thought that love is like the movies, I don't need to save for the future because I will always have a job, nothing would happen to someone I know such as getting cancer or something. Well with my neighbor I had a brush with reality. Something will eventually happen to loved ones and I can not imagine it. I don't want to see my parents like that or even anyone else I know. It was hard enough seeing someone I barely knew. I now know that there is no prince charming, everyone will have problems and relationships are hard work. I still am not sold on that because I think that if you are truely in love you will do anything for a loved one. And now the kicker I am now scared about my job.

Jud wrote a post about the layoffs he is experiencing where he works, I went out to dinner for a friends birthday and she was talking about how that day they had layed off 10% of their employees, and my cousin works for Bank of America and she had talked about the unknown of her future so this week I heard a lot about people losing their jobs. One of the reasons I like where I work because they have said they would never have mass layoffs and always put employees first. I do not work for Bank of America or Wachovia for a reason because those larger banks will cut departments to save money and I felt I would be more of a number than a person. Granted I may have made more money working for a larger company I liked working somewhere where the President of the Investment side of the bank makes a point to know each person's name from day one. So when I heard about our company announcing layoffs I was shocked. When I read about it on the Internet it stated about how the company who once said they would not do this was now and would not mention any numbers.

They have already started this but it was on the bank side or IT but nothing in our department but it still bothered me about how I once thought they would never do this is now going against that what they said. I think in the financial industry it is inevitable and even though they are doing some restructuring they are doing whatever they can not to. They are trying to place them in other jobs etc. but there are still some people that are out of luck. My manager met with me and his other managers and assured us that we are okay and how we had a profitable year, we are already bone thin compared to other areas in the bank and that our department actually had a more profitable year than the previous one. He mentioned that our company as a whole has done well compared to others in the industry. After we come out of this we will be at an advantage etc. This was a somewhat pep talk but also I heard that another department had a somewhat different pep talk. I will not go into what they were told in case someone at work reads this but I am sure they will not. Basically they were told that we maybe safe now but we can not control what the future holds. I think this was smart because I have always thought that nothing like this would happen. I would buy luxury things (I am a shopoholic) instead of planning for my future.

My manager said he had a good feeling when leaving his meeting with his boss. That it was a pep talk and the meeting was to make sure people know that things are okay right now. I have a different feeling. The future is uncertain and things can eventually happen especially working in the financial industry. Some of the older people have said they are amazed that nothing has happened before. There is always mergers and buyouts etc that go on with banking. I heard stories about how they call people in a room and will say if you are in this room then you are safe, while others do not have that luck and are told they are gone and shown a chart where it shows the diversity of who they cut. They cut so many females, males, white, black, hispanic, old, young, basically they had certain numbers of each gender, race, age etc that they would lay off and they just so happen to meet that criteria. Even if we are told that things have been profitable and not to worry, I think it is particularly scary right now. If something did happen it is a lot harder to find work right now. I feel scared for the people I know but I am going to take my cousin's advice. I asked her how she is handling things because she is not sure what is going to happen where she works. She made the first round of cuts but the future is not good for the department she works in. She said she tries not to think about it. She could spend her time worried and upset but what good would it do. If something happens then she can go through those emotions but for the time being she can not make herself upset about something that may not even happen.

Karma

Justin Timberlake says "what goes around comes back around" and now I think he is right. I wrote a post about my neighbors and now I feel aweful because something happened to one of the few nice ones. The guy who lives right beside me always has been nice. He keeps to himself never complains and he does not like that busybody neighbor who lives downstairs either. He does not have any pets but signed the waiver against the new pet policy to help me and Emory (the other neighbor with a pug out).

Last night I came home and there was a firetruck out front. I thought oh no I did something wrong like left my oven on or other stupid things I do sometimes. In college one time I came home and there was a firetruck in front of the house where we rented the top floor. We found out that the fire started on our back balcony where in college we would smoke. They had to flush the walls all the way down the house but there was no real damage inside just the balcony and water damage to the floors below. My brother in law is a lawyer and was just starting out so I called my sister and immediately asked to talk to Bobby. That was not the only time I have done that so now whenever I ask to talk to Bobby she knows I have done something. It is nice to have a lawyer in the family because he saved us. The fireman said that the fire started from a cigarette but my brother said he could not prove it and that there could have been cigarette butts from a long time ago so he should not put that down as the cause. I don't know what all he said but I do know that the cause was unknown and we even ended up getting our deposit back.

So when I saw the firetruck I just knew it was something I have done again. As I pulled around to see my place and that it was still standing without a door busted in. Yes that happened before because my air conditoner did something that made it overflow and water soaked through to the first floor (I live on the third floor). Now that I think about it, I may not be the best person to live next to either.

I entered my condo and the dogs were fine and there was no one in there. So what could it be? There was an odd feeling and everything was dead silent. Then I hear some people talking and I thought somebody was coming to yell at me about the dogs or noise maybe the dogs were barking while I was gone so I did not open the door. I looked through the peephole and saw several people were outside. I then saw them pushing a wheelchair with what looked like the guy next door. My heart stopped because I have never seen something like this. He looked like he either was drugged or he had a stroke, but this man was probably in his 40's so I was shocked to see him in this state. I should have gone outside but I thought that otherwise. I went to my balcony and saw an ambulance along with the firetruck and waited to see if I could see anything. I really wanted to know if it was my neighbor or a friend of his because I was not positive it was him. It looked sort of like him because they both had a bald head that was shaved but his face looked different but that could have been because of the state he was in.

It is like when you see a car wreck and even though you know you shouldn't most people slow down to see if they can see what is going on. Why do people want to look? I really want to know what went on and I briefly contimplated knocking on the nosy neighbor downstairs to get the scoop. But I thought how can I be like the person who should mind their own business. I would not want someone to be in my business especially if he had done something like took some pills or whatever happened.

Now I feel terrible, I still want to know but I think it is different. It is not gossip like this person has not paid their homeowner's fees or this person is having marriage problems or anything negative. I want to know because I am concerned. I think he was a nice man and I have lived next to him for almost 4 years. Besides recently when he said he signed the proxy and I asked if he had a problem with my dryer (somehow the lint was coming out of the vent by his walkway), we have never shared a conversation more than hi. This is how nice he was because he did not call the president of the homeowners association, but he just would sweep the lint up. I saw him doing this and asked if that happened a lot and he told me it did so I immediately said I would try and fix the problem. He has really appreciative which is not like the mean person down stairs. I tried to figure out what was going on but that is definately something he should have told me was happening because that is a legitamite problem. So I should "love thy neighbor as thyself" because you never know what can happen. But I am having a hard time with that because the person downstairs is so mean. Maybe he should take that advice.

Driving Mr. Kennedy

Last night and tonight I agreed to keep my friend's dog Kennedy who is a King Charles Cavalier like my dog Ella. So I was so excited because I thought they would have so much fun together and because I would get to snuggle in my bed with 2 dogs. That might sound a little weird but I let my dog sleep with me every night. She usually hogs the bed or lays on my head but I let her anyway. I was excited walking them around the block and showing them off. I felt like Sex in the City, Charlotte had a dog like Ella, but it was fun walking with these two little pooches. Later on I wanted to bring them by a friend house to show them off. Now you know how I am with driving. My car is in the shop because the shifter will not work and there are pieces falling off from where I would hit things, but I am still holding off on getting that fixed. My driving abilities are not the best and I even have friends that will not ride with me. If someone new does ride with me they hold on for for dear life. I really don't think it is that bad but I found out when I drove Kennedy.

Ella was in my lap and Kennedy was sitting on the passenger seat. I drive Ella around all the time and she loves the car. She has no fear sticking almost her whole body out the window, ears flapping driving down the highway or around the block. This was not at all how Kennedy behaved. At first he was sitting in the seat chilling but when I started driving it changed. By the end of the ride he had his face up against the seat of the car like he was getting support from the back of the seat. He did not look happy at all. I mean even a dog can not ride with me. How can I be that bad!

Cooper River Bridge Run

I just wrote a long blog but I got a work phone call and some paperwork was laying on my keyboard and so I pushed something and now it is deleted. So I will keep this short and sweet. I am trying to lose weight, I have already lost 7 lbs but I need to work on. I am going back to a personal trainer I paid for way back last year tonight. By the way I am also starting a budget. So I am a little scared I may get killed tonight but if I make it out alive I will write some more tomorrow. I am on this fitness kick or want to be since I have not started actually working out (does imagining you doing it or dreaming about running count)

I signed up for the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston which is in April so I now have to get my butt in gear. I guess it is good to have a goal but I hope I don't slack off!

Neighbors

I have to rant today. I think everyone has some interesting neighbors but it is especially difficult living in a complex. I ask you what is something funny or something you want to rant about your neighbors.

My sister's street put a speed bump and one neighbor posted a sign, if you don't like this speed bump thank so and so.. They fight over the street and the funny thing is they both have the same friends and belong to the same supper club. So they yell at each other and then at night make polite conversation.

No I do not live in Melrose Place where there are cute young fun neighbors but I live in a place with older people that have nothing better to do than to complain about others. There is one lady that lives downstairs from me that sits by her window and watches everything that goes on. Does she have anything better to do, I guess not. She complains about everything and is one to hunt you down and tell you exactly what so and so did. She has her curtain open and sits in a chair by the window. Who is this person. I have lived with that for a long time and usually I hide in my car if I see her and wait to go inside so I don't have to listen to her ramble on and complain.

There is one man that lives there that is super friendly and we talk sometimes because he has a pug and of course I have Ella so we see each other walking the dogs. He told me yesterday that they are trying to pass something about pets in the bylaws of the homeowners association. There are two pages. First you can not own two animals so if I want another dog that is out. You can not have an animal over 40 pounds so the girl with the lab would have a problem. There is someone that had some visitors that had some big dogs that barked so now we have to suffer.

The other thing is the person who lives downstairs came up one time at 6:30 PM and said I had been making too much noise all day. I had a party that night so I had a maid come clean up and she was moving furniture. Come on it was not 11:00 at night.

Digi Fun Contest

I am playing along in a contest that I got from Georgie. Linda at Short Pump Preppy is having a Digi Fun Contest and of course I love contests so I had to enter. Here is my fun pic and I had so much fun doing this, there might be more coming.