Why Is It?

That whenever I seriously consider shutting down my business, things pick up?

Today I Am Grateful

That I was close to both home and a mechanic when my car started acting funny. And not on my way too or stuck at someplace much further away.

Things To Say To Bullies

Dr. Phil teams up with American Girl author, Patti Criswell, to tackle the most important issues facing young ladies.

From DrPhil.com:

She gives examples of how young ladies can stand up to bullies. “There are
so many options. You can look at [bullies] and you could say, ‘That doesn’t
even make sense.’ You could say, ‘What are you doing?’ I like the one-word
technique, because sometimes girls get anxious when they try to stand up for
others. So think of one word you could say that could shut a bully down without
getting you in trouble ... You look at them very confused and say, ‘What?”
Or very bored and say, ‘Whatever.’ Or you could look at them and kind of nod and
say, ‘Wow.'"

“You want to rehearse these things,” Dr. Phil tells Miah. “Practice
it in the mirror. Practice it with your mom.”

No Deal

They were willing to make some change to the major icky things, but didn't want to have to incur lawyer's fees to do so. (I was willing to take on 50% of the fee.) They said they had over 100 other people sign without issue.

I wonder whether or not I made mountains out of molehills. My lawyer, Mr. Miche and I all feel safer with me not signing. I don't think they were paying me enough anyway. I didn't stand to make a ton of cash from them overall, either.

Still ... icky.

Icky

Why does standing up for myself always feel icky?

I'm supposed to do some short-term occasional contract work starting this weekend. The company has recently changed names and all the paper needs to be signed again. They've added a new document which raised some flags. I contacted a lawyer to review the doc. Lawyer said not to sign any of the docs as is and one needs a major overhaul.

Now I'm waiting to hear of the company even wants to consider these changes. And I'm going to ask if they'll split some of the legal fees or have me work without a contract. Or even if they still want me to come in on the weekend.

All I feel now is icky.

Things That Make Me Anxious

In no particular order:

• bed bugs (in places like transit, libraries, schools, restaurants, movie theatres)


• the invasion of clutter that seems to be winning


• thinking of parting with wM's baby things


• making joint decisions involving large sums of monies to do things I'm not sure I want to do (I'm not sure I don't, I'm just not sure I do)


• inability to keep up correspondence with friends


• my inability to generate meaningful income (secondary to lack of marketing skills)


• thinking about the future a smart (but less than motivated) 20 yo I know that hasn't finished high-school, had a job or done any volunteer work


• aging family members


• parenting

That feels better. Now if I can just keep them out of my brain and leave them in this post.

Dear Universe, WTF?

Dear Universe,

I'm on to you. I see the pattern now. I start to let go of my anxieties around financial stability and then Mr. M losses his job. I start to feel happy about my place in life and a family member has a sudden onset health issue. I put down the mental burden of X with the faith that everything is going to be alright and you slap me across the the head with a brick.

Yes, I realize after the fact that the bricks didn't leave any permanent scarring damange. But they leave a helluva sting in the short term. You're toying with some serious operant conditioning patterns that are reinforcing my already-too-tight grip on anxieties.

Maybe we could chat about this over coffee one day instead.

Anxiously yours,
Me