Sheila Day 14
This morning began very, very early as Rah had a mini meltdown after she had computer cord issues. Because she has an older Mac, she struggled to find a place in Fargo that contained the dinosaur version necessary to give her battery the boost it needed. The timing was horrible as she is in the thralls of finals, I am over the edge stressed out, and I struggled to have the energy to even help her find a solution. I called our IT dude at the college, and low and behold, he had a dinosaur cord for the fossil of a computer, problem solved, yayyyyyy MOM! Rah struggled to see the forest through the trees and was ready to pay the $90 to solve her problem quickly. Frustrated, I asked why she wouldn't pay the $10.00 in gas and come and get it? She was over the edge stressed, I was stressed, and the mother-daughter timing was WAYYYYYYY OFF! I told her I needed to go . . . I . . . just . . . did . . . not . . . have . . . the . . . energy.
After awhile, she calmed down and texted that she would meet me. We agreed to have breakfast at 8:00 a.m. which meant we both needed to be on the road by 6:30 a.m. YIKES! I called her and we talked most of the way to Mahnomen. Our timing was nearly perfect; although, she was a little lost looking for the college. Not only did we have a good chat en route, we had breakfast together, I got to introduce her to a few folks at the college, and I even got BEAUTIFUL Christmas flowers! Unexpected, but perfect timing!
The day started out beautifully; however, as it often does, life happens! It was a three ring circus today! I am committed to the final edit of our Self Study Report for the Higher Learning Commission. We hired independent editors, but now the final details are up to us. It is a ton of work and I struggled to get to those edits amidst a sea of students. All morning long it felt as though my timing was off. I sat with those edits diligently working, and then IT happened, the Mac spinning wheel of death showed up in my Microsoft Word document!
Those of you that work on Macs understand that Apple and Word do not always communicate well with one another. Today, on my computer, in crunch time, amidst a sea of edits, they stopped talking not once, not twice, not three times, but four! I learned after one and two and saved my changes. I saved them in three and four. And then FIVE happened at almost 5:00 p.m. when my eyes were burning, my head hurt, and I was exhausted. What was FIVE you might ask? Total MELTDOWN! I had made it through 80+ pages of the 145 I had to edit, and lost almost all of it . . . it is DUE TOMORROW! Not only did I lose what I had done in the past 3 hours, but for some reason, the two decided TO communicate and they both AGREED that there was a Microsoft Word error. Both systems completely shut down and I lost everything. I sighed deeply and said NOOOOOO. There was a student in the lab outside my office that heard the deep sigh and the NOOOOOOO! She asked if I was ok. I said no, I am leaving . . . I need to cry. Not just a little cry, but a total, uncontrollable sob! COMPLETE MELTDOWN!
Sometimes timing sucks!
This has been a hard time for Rah and I. We are both tapped out with our lives right now and our timing is kinda off. This Christmas season I would love to do random acts of kindness for others, but that costs money, and right now I have a wedding to help pay for. I wish that I had the time to do for others instead of spending all of my time focused on this report, but our jobs and the future of the college rests on commitment, and the report has to be submitted on time. Timing is critical. I miss the twinkle of lights, the Christmas smells, and the time spent with family and friends. I miss reflecting on each day with a warm feeling associated with the holidays. I miss some of the joys of our blogs of the past. Again, I am crying uncontrollable tears, because I know that tomorrow I will have to face the edits I lost today . . . the time I lost was valuable. And then tonight I realized that the only thing I have left to give for this holiday season are a few words in a blog at the end of my day in total and utter exhaustion. Each day, I have given the last ounce of energy I have so my baby girl and I can try and make some sort of difference in another's holiday season through the words we write. Creativity has its own timing and we have really had to work to make them flow. However, each day we hope and pray that the topic we choose, and the timing is somehow perfect for another as our timing is totally off in this dance we call life. Prayers for life's perfect timing this holiday season.
Sheila
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Sarah Day 14
Yesterday morning my computer cord decided to break at the worst possible moment. I was in the middle of trying to finish my final assignments for my last class of the semester. I only have two days left to hand everything in, and I was really hoping I wouldn't be waiting until the final day. But, with my bad luck, that may just happen.
My Macbook Pro is going on six years old now, so finding a new charger for my laptop was not easy. The first place I checked was Best Buy. I told the salesman in the computer department that my Mac is six years old and the new chargers do not work. But he assured me that they had the correct one, so $80 later, I was a little relieved and on my way home. Of course when I made it home and opened up the package, I could see that the charger was definitely not the right one and low and behold, it did not fit. I immediately went back to Best Buy and told them what happened. They did some searching for a bit but when they came back to me, they said that they do not carry my model charger anymore. The man assured me that it could be ordered online. I forced a smile on my face and told him that I do not have the luxury of time because I am wrapping up my first semester of grad school. I told him that I have two days left to get all my assignments in. I could see that he was empathetic and trying to come up with a solution, but eventually, he just gave me my money back and I walked away.
After that whole ordeal I went straight into meltdown mode. Mom says that when I'm having a meltdown, it's like I'm in the middle of a forest and I can't even see all the trees around me. She's right. When bad luck comes my way, it always happens to be at the perfect time. Or rather, the most terrible time ever! And I do not think logically when I'm melting down. So as Mom and Jesse were trying to come up with solutions, all I could do was cry and get frustrated at every option. If the darn thing would have broke a day or two later, I would have been perfectly fine. But I was in the middle of something really important with a due date, and the last thing I wanted to worry about was a charger.
Once again, as Mom often does, she came through again. She found a charger for me from a man that she works with at the tribal college. She said he was going to give it to me for free. Although I was not thrilled about the situation and the idea of driving an hour and a half first thing this morning, I didn't have very many options. So I took Mom up on her offer. I woke up in a much better mood and I decided that I was actually excited to go to Mahnomen. I haven't ever visited Mom at work and I was looking forward to it. I woke up a little early, stopped to pick up some flowers, and then I was on my way. First thing this morning we met for breakfast where we had the opportunity to chat a bit. After breakfast we drove around town for a bit and Mom showed me some cool things in Mahnomen, and a few not so cool things. Then we made our way to the college where Mom works and she showed me around. She introduced me to a few of her students and faculty members, and then we went back to the bat cave. Aka, Mom's office.
WETCC was pretty neat! Mom talked to me about some of the traditions in the college and what some of different knick-knacks meant. The college was quant, which I can appreciate because I am a fan of smaller colleges. It was very peaceful there today. Mom said classes are about done for the semester, so there were only a few faculty members in their offices, and a few students roaming around. Mom's office looked the way I pictured it to look in my head. She had some really neat tribal wall hangings, a lot of books, some pictures of Jordan and Sam, Jesse and I, and a big basket of suckers. It was fun to see Mom in her element. She talks about her job quite a bit because she really loves it. It was evident to me that her students totally adore her, and that she has some strong connections with her faculty. Why did I wait so long to go visit?
I think it's funny how bad luck often leads to really great moments. Going to Mahnomen was definitely not in my plans, and before my charger broke, I couldn't even imagine going anywhere until my assignments were finished. But, bad luck happened and surprisingly, it led me to a wonderful, unexpected couple of hours with my ma. I find moments like that to be refreshing. They remind me that God truly does have a plan for everything that we do. I took this as God's way of saying that it was time for me to go see why my mom loves what she does so much. Good luck or bad luck, good timing or bad timing. God always has a reason for it. Sometimes we just have to wait a little while to find out what the reason is. It's usually worth the wait!
My Macbook Pro is going on six years old now, so finding a new charger for my laptop was not easy. The first place I checked was Best Buy. I told the salesman in the computer department that my Mac is six years old and the new chargers do not work. But he assured me that they had the correct one, so $80 later, I was a little relieved and on my way home. Of course when I made it home and opened up the package, I could see that the charger was definitely not the right one and low and behold, it did not fit. I immediately went back to Best Buy and told them what happened. They did some searching for a bit but when they came back to me, they said that they do not carry my model charger anymore. The man assured me that it could be ordered online. I forced a smile on my face and told him that I do not have the luxury of time because I am wrapping up my first semester of grad school. I told him that I have two days left to get all my assignments in. I could see that he was empathetic and trying to come up with a solution, but eventually, he just gave me my money back and I walked away.
After that whole ordeal I went straight into meltdown mode. Mom says that when I'm having a meltdown, it's like I'm in the middle of a forest and I can't even see all the trees around me. She's right. When bad luck comes my way, it always happens to be at the perfect time. Or rather, the most terrible time ever! And I do not think logically when I'm melting down. So as Mom and Jesse were trying to come up with solutions, all I could do was cry and get frustrated at every option. If the darn thing would have broke a day or two later, I would have been perfectly fine. But I was in the middle of something really important with a due date, and the last thing I wanted to worry about was a charger.
Once again, as Mom often does, she came through again. She found a charger for me from a man that she works with at the tribal college. She said he was going to give it to me for free. Although I was not thrilled about the situation and the idea of driving an hour and a half first thing this morning, I didn't have very many options. So I took Mom up on her offer. I woke up in a much better mood and I decided that I was actually excited to go to Mahnomen. I haven't ever visited Mom at work and I was looking forward to it. I woke up a little early, stopped to pick up some flowers, and then I was on my way. First thing this morning we met for breakfast where we had the opportunity to chat a bit. After breakfast we drove around town for a bit and Mom showed me some cool things in Mahnomen, and a few not so cool things. Then we made our way to the college where Mom works and she showed me around. She introduced me to a few of her students and faculty members, and then we went back to the bat cave. Aka, Mom's office.
WETCC was pretty neat! Mom talked to me about some of the traditions in the college and what some of different knick-knacks meant. The college was quant, which I can appreciate because I am a fan of smaller colleges. It was very peaceful there today. Mom said classes are about done for the semester, so there were only a few faculty members in their offices, and a few students roaming around. Mom's office looked the way I pictured it to look in my head. She had some really neat tribal wall hangings, a lot of books, some pictures of Jordan and Sam, Jesse and I, and a big basket of suckers. It was fun to see Mom in her element. She talks about her job quite a bit because she really loves it. It was evident to me that her students totally adore her, and that she has some strong connections with her faculty. Why did I wait so long to go visit?
I think it's funny how bad luck often leads to really great moments. Going to Mahnomen was definitely not in my plans, and before my charger broke, I couldn't even imagine going anywhere until my assignments were finished. But, bad luck happened and surprisingly, it led me to a wonderful, unexpected couple of hours with my ma. I find moments like that to be refreshing. They remind me that God truly does have a plan for everything that we do. I took this as God's way of saying that it was time for me to go see why my mom loves what she does so much. Good luck or bad luck, good timing or bad timing. God always has a reason for it. Sometimes we just have to wait a little while to find out what the reason is. It's usually worth the wait!
Sarah
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