Epiphany

I was having an email exchange with my niece earlier this evening and the topic of Alaska came up and she asked me if I had ever been and she mentioned she had been offered a job there but had been told she couldn't take it because of the weather and low temperatures there so she had to decline the offer.  The way she told it, it was unclear who had said she couldn't take it but that she then declined it, well, it confused me so I asked who had told her she couldn't take the job.  Turns out it was her husband.

As I thought about this it occurred to me that that is the reason I have no desire to be married again - well one of the reasons anyway.  It seems that when it comes to "allowing" their spouse to do anything, the husbands want the final say - kind of like a parent would for their small child.  We have to get permission to do things like go places or spend money, whereas the men do whatever they want and spend as much as they want and they feel no need to clear it through their wives.

But here's where the epiphany came in (because I pretty much knew the other part), they want to play the role of parent when it comes to what we do, EXCEPT when it comes to taking care of the house.  They want to be the child that gets taken care of.  The one whose only contribution to a meal is sitting at the table (or in front of the TV).  They rarely want to help with household chores of cooking or cleaning and to them, watching their own kids is usually considered "babysitting".  But when a woman does it, it's parenting.  And they expect to receive medals if they ever pitch in at all.  Plus, we can get fussed at if we don't stay on top of "our" chores (but we can't say anything if they don't stay on top of "theirs"!).

At the end of my marriage my husband and I were working together and we only had one car so we were both away from the house all day, everyday.  One day we got home and he immediately started complaining because he thought the house was a mess.  I was stunned by the viciousness of his "complaint" but once I composed myself, I pointed out that he was home exactly the same amount of time as I had been and if he was unhappy with the cleanliness of the house he could just of as easily done something about it as I could.  That didn't stop his complaining.  A few years back I was experiencing a debilitating illness where getting out of bed was challenging for me - literally.  Cleaning was not something I was physically able to do and I remember thinking that if I was still married to that person, he would probably have complained because the house was a mess and not lifted a finger to clean it himself.  I don't miss being married to that man.

Having said all that I also want to say, I know not all men are like that but in my experience, more are than are not and I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who wants to be the boss of me but expects me to be the adult when he thinks tasks are "beneath" him.  And somehow a conversation about Alaska brought more clarity to the situation for me.  Weird how that works, isn't it?  :)

Serendipity

One of my goals this year is to get some things done that I've been putting off.  Early in the year I made a list of things I needed to do each day and checked them off . . . or not.  I "invested" in a product that I can keep the list on my refrigerator (although that's not how I originally envisioned it - but that's okay).

 

Anyway, I moved here almost a year ago (less than a week shy of that anniversary!).  One of the drawing features is the fact that there is a generator here because my other house didn't (and doesn't) have one because it's all electric - no gas for the generator.  Well, about six months ago the power went out here and the generator didn't kick in.  I called the generator guy, who told me he was headed out of town so it would be about a week before he got here.  I said that was fine and I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I finally got a call about six weeks later with him following up to see if I needed him to come out.  Since I'd originally called, the power had gone out again but that time the generator kicked in like it was supposed to.  I told him that and told him I didn't think I needed him to come out after all, and left it at that.

At some point after that, the power went out again and the generator didn't kick in - again.  I didn't do anything about it for a long time though.  After the first of the year, I added it to my "to do" list and I called him about three weeks ago.  I believe it was on a Friday.  He said he could probably come out on Monday.  My mistake was in not asking which Monday, but I digress.  He came out ten days later to check things out.  Long story short, it was pretty messed up and needed "servicing".

Fast forward to last night, a "severe winter storm" hit here and my power went out.  According to the email I received, I lost power around 3:00 a.m. last night.  But, thanks to the service call I put in a few weeks ago, my generator kicked in.  And thank goodness because there's still no power in the area and no estimated time it will be turned back on!

 

I'm also snowed in.  Below is a snapshot of my front yard this morning.  I have a rain gauge that can read 5 or 6 inches and it is completely buried under the snow!  But thanks to my call to the generator guy, I'm nice and toasty in my house.  :)

 

 

Learning a New Language

 Way back in 2016 I bought some CDs to learn Italian.  I was planning to travel there and wanted to be able to speak the language.

Well, I cancelled the trip and set aside the CDs, always intending to go back to them and learn the language anyway.  I did take a Mediterranean cruise in 2018 and we did spend time in Italy but, I hadn't learned the language yet.

In fact, I never opened the box of CDs until last week!  I had them all these years and never opened them, much less tried to learn the language.

But I did open them last week and I have been listening to them and practicing the language.  I've decided to do one lesson a week, repeating the lesson daily so that I feel comfortable with the lesson before moving on.  I decided this after the first lesson because, frankly, I just wasn't getting it.  By the end of the week, I did feel comfortable to move on.  

Lesson two seems easier.  The first ten minutes are a repeat of lesson one and the rest is things like saying hello and good bye - phrases I was already familiar with.

I will say that there have been times where I've found myself incorporating words or phrases from other languages but for the most part, I feel I'm doing okay.

Now, having said all that, I do feel that there are times when maybe I'm saying words in correctly - some I feel I just don't have the ability to pronounce the way they're supposed to be said.  When those words enter the lesson, the video below (particularly the second scene) comes to mind.  :)

Passwords

 I just tried to log into an account of mine and it took two tries to get it right.  

 

About a year ago I tried to long on to this account and apparently they had implemented a new system that forces you to change your password every few months - and it has requirements for those passwords.  You have to have upper and lower case letters in the password.  You have to have at least one number and at least one symbol.

 

In the past I had a few passwords that I used.  If I tried one and it didn't work, I tried another.  If that one didn't work, I'd try capitalizing a particular letter (in case that was a requirement for that particular account).  I could usually figure out the password before I reached the point of locking myself out of an account - I might not remember which one I just typed in to know for future reference, but I could usually figure it out before I was locked out.

Here's the thing, I don't typically use the type of password that would be easily figured out by a bad actor. I actually have some passwords that have all the required criteria I mentioned above.  But the thing is, they don't require me to change them every few months.  I mean, I get that companies want to make it difficult to access by a bad actor but when the user can't access the account?  Now THAT'S a problem!

Happy New Year

It's a new year and a time to start fresh, or something like that.

 

I don't make resolutions anymore but I do set goals for myself each year.  The theory being that if you make a resolution, you can fail - early on - and you're disappointed in yourself and want to give up.  If you make a goal, maybe you just haven't achieved it yet, so keep trying, right?  At least that's how I look at it.

 

This year I have a long list of goals and have even started collecting things to encourage my success at it.  For instance, I ordered a monthly chalk board where I can list what I need to accomplish and mark it off when completed.  It comes with a grocery list and a "to do" list board as well.  I think it will help but time will tell, right?

 

Another example of trying to set myself up for success, one of my goals is to read the entire bible in one year.  I've started this before and read every day for two and a half months before I gave up.  Well, as I was watching my church service this morning, at the end of the sermon the speaker mentioned reading the bible in a year and gave a website - bibleinoneyear.org - and I went there to check it out.  It was interesting because it's not just reading the bible from the beginning to the end, which is how I've always attempted it in the past, it gave passages from three different books in the bible - Psalms, Matthew and Genesis - in that order.  The passages connected to each other to share a specific message.  I liked that.  But to keep me on target for my goal, I signed up for the daily newsletter.  I assume it will be the message and bible passages for the day but if not, it will at least remind me to go back to the website to read that day's messages.

And this evening, I made a "to do" list for tomorrow.  I'm supposed to have someone show up tomorrow to do some work on the house and I don't know how long it will take and it's possible it will interfere with my "to do" list but I figure I at least got a start on the day, right?

So that's how I'm starting my new year and how I'm addressing the year's goals.  

 

How is your year looking?