I have about a half hour before Chemistry lecture, and I need to calm down from the Spanish test that I just took, so blogging seems like a good way to spit it all out.
Back in school, again. I simultaneously love and hate the beginning of a quarter. After a few weeks without a set schedule, my internal clock is always off and I have a hard time organizing my thoughts into a cohesive mass that will allow me to accomplish the things I need to do, daily. Throw in the holiday season, dear readers, and we end up with a completely discombobulated Steph who is simply unable to prioritize and organize for maximum efficiency during the start of the quarter. It always takes me about 3 weeks or so to get settled, which is kind of balls in Winter quarter because it's only 10 weeks long.
The holiday season flew by this year, just like it did last year. The exception was that I was mostly okay with it. I got the chance to see my parents the week before Christmas, because they drove all the way to Bellingham from Lewiston to spend one night in town and have an early Christmas with me and John. It was a great visit. We sat around in our living room and drank bourbony cider and hot tea, and laughed. John and I were a little overwhelmed with the generosity of the gift giving this year, especially because we were so broke that it was difficult for us to reciprocate. However, having my parents with me was really nice, and something that happens next to never.
Christmas was always a really big deal for my family when I lived at home, and no matter how poor we were, my parents always worked really hard to make sure it was a special and fun time for my sister and I. I know we must had some really tight Christmases, but I don't remember ever having one where we felt in any way deprived. We had a ton of Christmas music, decorations, preparations and baking, and even as we got older it was still a tradition to get up early on Christmas morning and sit and look at the tree before Mom and Dad got up. As we got older, I'd sit with a cup of coffee and just enjoy the lights and the quiet. Now, with many other things that affect me more as I age, I find that even thinking about Christmas chokes me up. I get nostalgic and heart fluttery, and I instantly get weepy. When Christmas music starts playing everywhere, both John and I know that it's about time for me to start crying in public again. (This year, we were in JoAnn Fabrics the first time it happened, and as soon as I heard the "Da Who Dor Ays" of the song from the Grinch, I was throat thick and wet eyed.) John didn't come into our marriage with the same blind adoration for the holidays that I had, but he's been getting more and more into our new Christmas traditions every year. Watching him make presents for some of our friends and family this year was really rewarding, he was so happy and pleased with himself.
We were really blessed in that we got to see almost everyone we loved during the holidays. We again spent them with Sean, who has become an essential part of our family. His stocking was hung on our mantel, he helped us get and then decorate the tree, and he came to our Christmas Day celebration with John's family. That was also really great, totally relaxed and non stressful. Any day I get to spend with family and friends I love, in my pajamas, eating fattening and delicious food while drinking and napping is an instant win. John's family Christmas celebrations are definitely not the traditional Christmases I grew up with, but they're amazing in their own right. I can see, as our marriage progresses with each holiday season, how we are taking elements from each of our family traditions and making our own. This year was especially good for that. We had some cocktails on Christmas Eve with the Bryant/Mastema clan, kind of like grownups. It was really relaxing and happy for me and for John, and I hope it was for them, too. We had a Friendsmas party, and BOTH of my girls came from Seattle, AT THE SAME TIME. It was wonderful. I had a house full of people I loved, and Christmas music. I made a turkey dinner, and the food turned out great. It was an amazing day. Seeing Kat and Carly together also really made my heart swell, and I was so happy to have them both with me. I got weepy when it was time for them to leave, and told John in a thick voice how great it was for me that they had come.
We also had a big change at the shop, where Scot bought out Jonathan's portion of the ownership. So, now I have Scot and Katy for partners instead of Katy and Jonathan. This is a good thing, for all parties, and I'm happy to see everyone so satisfied with the change. However, it also means there are lots of adjustments to be made, right in time for Winter quarter to start, new schedule to be in place, and hiring more employees for a completely new training schedule. I am optimistic that the person we hired will work out well, but training is time consuming and an investment of energy with an upset to a schedule, right when I really need to get a set schedule in place.
Add to this, in both my personal and professional life, I am beset with obstacles thrown up by manipulators. Personal and professional integrity is of paramount importance to me, and when I feel like certain relationships or interactions are a series of machinations to pull one over on me or to knock me down a peg for personal gain, it makes me distrustful of all interactions. That's not a way I want to operate, not a way I can continue to live. One of my friends put this quote on his Facebook the other day:
"You get people to help you by telling the truth; by being earnest. I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short-term, earnest is long term." --Randy Pausch
I sometimes feel as if I missed the lecture all other adults got on how to spot a liar, or how to tell if someone is really being honest in their motives towards you. I know that this is just experience and intuition, and my experience has been negative enough you'd think I would have developed a stronger sense of intuition by now. My friend Teri talks about "cake or snake," a term that she developed to explain why I shouldn't trust a man I was dating. She explained it like this: "It's like one time, you reached into a box and you got cake out, and you thought 'OOOH, cake! I love cake!' but the next time you reached into the box, there was a snake instead. Every time you trust him, you reach into that box hoping that this time there will be cake and not a snake, and he puts cake into the box just often enough that you continue to think 'sometimes, there's cake there,' but, you should know that it's almost always going to be snake, not cake." Teri is right. Sometimes, people sweeten the deal just enough to let you think that they are not in fact, terrible people. And then, it's always snake and no cake. I am working on recognizing the snake early enough to keep from being tempted by the promise of cake. It becomes especially difficult when it's a situation I face daily. The only way I have figured out to conquer it is to be open, honest, and transparent. I am trying to be vocal and outright about my motives and intentions, and to follow through on what I state I am going to do. I am trying very hard to be the same person to everyone I encounter, and to make that person be as sincere and giving as I can be and still put myself first. I am working on really being a better person at night when I go to bed than I was when I got up in the morning.
And with that, it's time for class and homework. I have a ton to do this weekend, and I am starting to get anxious that it's not all going to get accomplished. Gotta start truckin'.
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