I am sure, like me, you are already up to your eyeballs, aud nauseam, with the Political ads and blogging conversation. Folks on both side are jamming their pea shooters full of quotes that have fact and figures from either second hand sources or sources that are clearly only a part of the picture.

So I want to say, “STOP! You’re both right.” and also, “STOP! You’re both wrong.” I am thinking that the more we sling curses and stereotypes at each other the more someone else is going to be making a great deal of money. And folks that is not going to be you or me. Someone(s) want us all distracted so they can continue business as usual behind a smokescreen.

I have had people stop talking to me over this election. People I have known for 50 years. Really? I have had people tell me I am not a Christian over this. A fact which I am quite sure is up to God and myself. I am hearing much more ugly slander and foul potty mouth language. These media whores are just lucky my Grand Mother isn’t around. I think I have referred to her notorious bar of soap which she kept at the waiting in her arsenal aka pocket book. SHAME, SHAME on anyone who is making one red cent as a media personality who is stirring up hatred and divisions among Americans of differing political holdings.

The thing is I firmly believe history shows us is  that no one gets into the White House without a long list of favors that got them there in the first place. I also don’t believe that anyone President can be held accountable for things like wars, gas prices, debts or unemployment rates. These are systems. These are patterns with many people in the trenches, people in power and people voting things in or out. It is an illusion to say that one President can shift history all by himself. Not even those who have been assassinated worked in a void. It was just easier to kill the public figure than the persons who probably had the most power, the  most favors out there to be collected.

So I want everybody in the United States of American to get a grip. Take a collective deep breath. Stand down and gather yourself. If you have found yourself angry and hating someone on the other side just stop it! We are a country that has had peaceful elections and change of power for the last 200 years. We can do this.

Now, especially if you are a Christian. We are not called to hate our brothers and sisters. We are certainly NOT called to put government ahead of the love of Jesus. Whatever it is that has you so threatened that you feel you must hate someone for ‘the cause’…may I humbly remind you of what Jesus said to Peter as he (Peter) cut off the guard’s ear in Gethsemane, “Do you think I cannot appeal to my Father and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:53) .

I do not think hating each other in His name is going to fly at the ol’ Pearly Gates. We are to work for justice, but not in a spiteful way that supercedes the commandment to love one another (but the greatest of these is love). And Yes, I know you feel passionate about Abortion, Gays, and Wars. But right now there is a bigger issue!

We are losing our middle class to foreclosures. And even though we saw that technology was going to gobble up jobs, somehow we weren’t ready? And as any good motivational speaker will tell you, “Don’t ask whose fault it is?” Ask “How can it be fixed quickly!”

Example. Many classrooms have 45 kids in them with one teacher. Education: FAIL! So what about using a college model with technology? Lecture Halls, remember when we had auditorium presentations? Or how about putting math and English online with the teacher as an aide while the student engages in the program. Child can’t learn? Have alternate learning classrooms. Folks these methods are already being used.

Meanwhile, while the right and left look like five years olds wailing on each other pulling hair, throwing sand and biting. Someone is making a great deal of money. I suggest we band together and see who is making the most money off of us being at each other’s throats.  Back to the Jackie Chann movie quote: “Follow the white guy’s money!”

Our economy has been gutted. Someone(s) took money from programs which were going along swimmingly. Programs everyone said were fine and good uses of our tax money. Then they went belly-up. Programs such as Social Security Insurance, VA Services, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare Insurance, Public Education or assistance programs such as WIC, Head Start and affordable student loans. Good programs that were changing neighborhoods by giving a hand up.

Who did this horrible thing to our country?

Special interest groups.

We all need to start reading the budget and the 2 proposed budgets. How much goes to war? (We have been at war for Approx. 198 years out of the last 200.) Sounds like a BIG business to me and with YOUR children as cannon fodder. How much goes to education? How much goes to infrastructure? How much goes to medicare?

Americans wake up! While you are duke-ing it out someone else is stealing the cookies and the cookie jar!

Speaking of calendars and gloom, I am soooo confused about the Mayan calendar. Some say there is no leap year so the doom and gloom is long over. Some day it doesn’t matter and some say the “clock” resets, it’s just that the Mayans ran out of space on the circle. (I guess that’s like the early ‘digital clocks’ that flipped over actual numbers placards for you to read, and reused over and over again–yes, that was a long time ago. How long, well, that sort of clock is now in museums under “the old days”) If you have the stomach to follow doomsday theories this year of elections should make sure you get your a stomach full. Me? I am apt to just open the window and listen to the birds sing while they can. Cause between pink slime and political slime 2012 has not been a great year so far.

On the bright side I figured out how to post my art work here on this url (SEE: Sally’s Art, Art2, Art3 buttons on top of this page). And as soon as I figure out how to delete the double postings here and there I may look like a grown-up- professional-adult type person…something to which I have aspired lo these many years, but seem to be just a half bubble off plumb in the attainment thereof. Not that grown-up is all it’s cracked up to be. For instance I just had to take a drivers test and also pay for a speeding ticket…which I did speed to get, but had a really good reason which I wrote in a letter. A letter that I edited 6 times to get the right intonation and buzz words in my favor. A letter to which the lady at the desk said, “we don’t really want to see it, you already have had the fee reduced by agreeing to (once again) go to traffic school,” then she gave a thin lipped smile in an attempt to be polite. I get a speeding ticket about every 12 years whether I need one or not.

Well, I see this month’s blog has gone to hell in an Easter basket, so I’ll end with this happy note, I have seen several rainbows this month, I went to Victoria, BC to Butchart Gardens and I saw the Gaunguin Show in Seattle. My grandkids are brilliant and my artwork will be in a show (SEE: Art3 above. Did I mention that?), as in for sale, here in Portland in May and then afterwards here online. Also, I have lost all the weight I gained on the aforementioned trip just in time to regain it all and then some eating scores of peeps and malted milk eggs. Life is good.

Blessing, love and laughter, Sally

Speaking of Saint Patrick’s Day I have had the good fortune to travel a great deal of Ireland and hear the people tell their history and if you ask me the ‘Luck of the Irish’ is not all that great. Not only have they been over run by religious zealots, whole countries just sailed up and said, “this is ours.” The Norse, the Normans, and English all took turns wreaking havoc, cutting down the trees for shipbuilding or what have you and if you include Northern Ireland this country has seen war up until 1998. And that doesn’t include either World War.

In the early 17th century there was the War of Three Nations. 20,000 troops died, 200,000 casualties of civilians and oh here’s an interesting tidbit, 50,000 Irish people were taken into slavery and sent to the West Indies. Then of course there was the mini-ice age from December 1739 until September 1741 ( I am sure it was cold after September, but the sun finally came out so it was declared over.) That was good for another 250,000 dead. No wonder the families kept having oodles of kids, you never knew who would live past infancy. Tragic.

Then of course there was the great potato famine of 1840. This little gem wiped out 1 million people. And another 1 million were said to have immigrated. Interesting word that. Because if you talk to the Irish people you hear stories that only 14 people owned all of Ireland, the landed gentry. After the potato crop failed the Lords decided to go into sheep herding which did not require villages full of serfs. Ergo the people who had worked the land for centuries were invited to leave on pain of death. Not exactly “immigration” more like forced into the sea.

When I was there the poorer farm folks were battling the environmentalist. Seems the ‘green’ contingency wanted to stop people from harvesting the peat bogs to retain their integrity as a national treasure. The problem is folks cut peat logs and dry them to use as fuel in the winter…as in survive. It’s not like their population numbers are sky rocketing to the point that the bogs will disappear. Not only are there lower population numbers, with fewer jobs young people are going elsewhere to make their fortunes, or at least minimum wage with tips. I am hoping the peat bogs are open for those who need heating.

So whether you drink green beer or carry a lucky rabbit’s foot in your  pocket (not so lucky for the rabbit and , um, ewwww!) have fun celebrating mid-March as you please. FYI: the snakes that St. Patrick is famous for ridding the Emerald Isle of was likely the Celtic religion and yes, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade proceeds usually went to the IRA resistence. I wonder where all that money goes now? And what does Erin go braugh really mean?

I declare February 29th as the day I shall set myself free. Wherever I have caged myself in I will look for a way out. Even if the bottom drops out it still is out. Not that I can conceive that the bottomless pit of my life has a bottom, but I am nothing, if not a positive thinker.

I will take Feb. 29th off as a day to ponder what little things I can do to help the world in general. I can recycle. I can re-purpose stuff headed for the landfill as artifacts usable in creative “found art” an endeavor I started ever since watching www.thestoryofstuff.com. I can buy things that I intend to use for many years, not just toss into the abyss when bored.

I can refuse to buy anything made in China or any other country that exploits women. Ratts that means I will never buy anything made anywhere again. Okay, I’ll just try to not buy things made in China for starts. But very much like going off my diet with a scrumptious double chocolate brownie…I will not beat myself up for infractions, but repent and move on.

I will listen to 5 times more music than watch internet TV. Ur, um, except for Downton Abbey which I watch if I need a good cry. How well written is a show if I am crying for Lady Mary, who would have run her car over me had I been walking down her street, ur um, mile long driveway? A girl needs some escapism from bills and ills.

I will laugh more, tell people I love them and not be so concerned about each new (well earned) wrinkle. I will pass along good news as readily as bad. I will pray for those who persecute me and those who just mildly piss me off.  I will in fact pray for ways for God to use me for good (as I already know how to use my time for lesser pursuits).

On Ground Hog Day I will watch the movie of the same name. It really was one of Murray’s finer moments.

Presidents’ Day will be filled with being honest as Abe and eating cherry pie, I think that should cover it.

Then once I get past the depression pit that Valentine’s Day is, I should be okay. It’s not a bad day, I can honor any dead Catholic saint you want…it’s the Hallmark version to which I have an aversion. For one thing I start rhyming like a candy heart gone bad. But here’s the problem: if you are with someone it is worse that Christmas for false expectations and if you are alone it is a day of demons wondering which Prince (Princess) got away and which ones were a bullet gladly dodged. On Valentine’s Day I vow to eat a great deal of chocolate and watch a funny movie or two or three.

Then it’s clear sailing to my Day of Jubilee. Ooo, and I just remembered Februray 29th is Saddie Hawkins Day as well (of Lil’ Abner fame). So if you are a single man within ear shot I may just ask you out, you have been forewarned. And if you are previously owned like a good Mercedes, I will be recycling as well. It just doesn’t get better than this.

February is just teaming with those Valentine vibes. The stores have been making shelf space for hard candy hearts with messages, boxes of chocolates and of course I’m-so-cute-I-could-puke stuffed animals. Yes, I’m jaded. Yes, I’m a cynic. But on the bright side, I don’t have to share any of the chocolates I just bought myself.

The problem I have with St. Valentine’s Day is the same issue I have with Christmas and Easter, the celebrations have been ‘Hallmark-isized’ to death. The original intent of honoring this Saint was to note how selfless he was. There are many legends surrounding Valentine. One says that he married couples in love when the British forbade it, another that he wrote letters to the downtrodden of encouragement on heart shaped ivy leaves from his prison cell. These notes were then spirited away by doves. Whoever he was he was NOT a pudgy cupid. He was NOT hocking diamonds. And he was NOT a supporter of romantic love.

Romantic love hangs out while the getting’s good. And when the getting is not so good, “Bye-bye love, bye-bye sweet caress, hello loneliness, I think that I could die, bye-bye my love good-by” (Everly Brothers…if you have to ask).

Real Valentine’s love, now that is a new subject and one that does not sell cards, candy or crap. Real love takes action. Real love is kind when others are rude and hurtful. Real love looks beyond today and seeks peaceful solutions for a long way down the road. Love is NOT a business manager flipping tricks so each quarter looks good to the stock holders.

Real love is a new economy based on some very old principles. What if getting ahead meant you were selling your soul? What if insisting life owed you a higher standard of living meant you would never be happy? The truth is stuff, status and standing doesn’t tell me much about your character, other than you have sold out. You will never find lasting peace by looking for love in all the wrong places (Waylon Jennings).

Love is helping up someone who cannot return the favor. Love is giving to someone who doesn’t deserve it. It is all about investing in people and being willing to lose that bet more than win it. Love is an action, not a reaction. It is intensely passionate, but seeks no gain.

February can be a month of joy and miracles if you will let go of what’s in it for you and give away your heart, money and soul to someone who is lonely, abandoned and forsaken. And just for fun do the giving anonymously. Give to someone who cannot possibly return the favor. Just add a note to “Pay it forward” (Catherine Ryan Hyde).

One of the best things I did this year was move to a city I had always loved but never lived in. I am now living in Portlandia, as the train loud-speakers call it in Spanish (so that’s where they got the name for the TV show- duh). Portland, Oregon is like going to the World’s Fair. It is so well planned, kept and infused with the arts I keep expecting someone to ask me to buy EE tickets. Portland just won an award for best city parks in the country…and they are. Rose gardens, azalea gardens, and rhododendron gardens grace hillsides. Intricate Japanese gardens, Chinese gardens and small pocket parks burst forth within the confines of the city blocks. In the suburbs people everywhere are ripping up their lawns and putting in vegetable gardens so if they have extra food they can donate it to food banks. Wish this had been popular when I was growing up. I hated mowing the lawn and dumping the grass clippings in the compost pile we never used was an ongoing debate. “Composting is good.” “But we have no gardens.”

There are tons of cool thing about Portland. People, all shapes and sizes and backgrounds live together in neighborhoods and are happy about it. They know their neighbors. The saying “Keep Portland Weird” is not just about being counter culture, but it’s about letting everyone be their own weird wonderful self. It is easy to get around. Downtown the trains and trolley line is FREE. Yup, free, just hop on and hop off. Did I mention that there is no sales tax? And the social services are marvelous. Oh, and when the police were trying to get the Occupy Portland people out of a park, they first assessed how many people there were homeless and ramped up their shelter bed count so that they were not forcing people to sleep on concrete or in alleys that next night. They talked with participants, did not use force, did not gas anyone. The police respected the right for civil disobedience. The people in return did not taunt the police. People for and against ‘Occupy’ understood that Freedom of Speech for everyone was being tested.

Oh, and that part about it always rains in Portland. Did you know that Atlanta, Georgia gets more rainfall than Portland? That even when it rain there are things called sunbursts? If you sit by a window at work you can look up and see the sun bouncing off the newly watered world all year long. I thought it was going to be like northern Iceland where you’d start chewing your paws by November–in the dark. Not the case. And here’s something for my New England friends to ponder…you don’t have to shovel over-cast.

Another great thing about this year is I was able to travel a great deal. And the year has another month in it and, yes-sire, I’m hitting another continent for New Year’s Eve. The best part of my travel was it is to all new places. Think of all the places I had never been lost in.  This was my chance to see if those Berlitz CDs worked. The answer is, I guess playing them while I was sleeping was not as effective as I had hoped. This year alone I have been lost in Barcelona, Rome, Capri, and Pompeii (it was that Lemoncello shot I tried before going in to the ruins). I got turned around in the ancient brothel and ended up with a Scandinavian group. Nice people but they all sounded like the Swedish chef on the Muppets, “chicky chicky, mork, mork, mork”.

I was lost in Santorini. (Telling me to take a left by the stairs at the blue dome was not funny.) I was lost in Sorrento. (Okay just at the winery sample room. Again, not my fault). I got lost in Kusadasi, Turkey in a 4 block area at the bazaar…if you’ve seen one rug store you’ve seen them all. Well maybe I only saw one. I don’t know. I never did see where they make the taffy or the towels. Ephesus, while built by the Romans in fact did not have a single road leading to Rome or anywhere else that looked familiar. They had a nice library, but no books. They had a large public bathroom with places for 20 or more to sit at a time, but no books there either…and no maps. Mykonos is not built on a grid and FYI if you’ve seen one jewelry store–you have not seen them all. And I got to see them all at least twice inside and out. You’ll be happy to know new inventory is arriving next week.

Athens doesn’t count, people who live there get lost. I did not get lost in the Corinth Canal it has massive high walls and the waterway is a straight line and I was in a small boat.  I did lose my tour group in Malta at the Co-Cathedral, now that was not absolutely not my fault. They need a sign in that place, not for people with ADD. Every inch of the walls and floors and ceiling was covered in intricate decor. The good news is I knew the ship was at the bottom of the cliff, I could even see it. Finding a way back to the ship, was an adventure. But hey, life is an adventure.

But the best thing, bar none, about this year was a very small new member of the family. Matthew Christopher arrived in the Fall. He is now cooing, laughing and gurgling. He sleeps most anywhere, but his favorite place, I think, is sleeping in Gramma’s arms. As someone who blogs, writes, paints, Skypes, tweets, texts (poorly), FBs, Links-In and usually all at once I learned something this year. If you stop long enough to let a baby fall asleep on you and don’t move you can hear the sweetest sound on earth. If you close the laptop, click off the remote and watch the sun filter through the trees onto the floor and wait…you can hear the wee sigh of contentment and joy. It is worth the wait.

And there’s good news. The year’s not finished. Step over the unpleasantness, the red ink, the fears and go find some joy. It is reasonably priced, but NOT in a store near you. It is the pine scent in the air, a bird calling, a squirrel scolding a chipmunk. It is a sunset, a rainstorm, a piece of candy found in a pocket (mostly lint free) just when you need it. It is a familiar song, a child’s giggle and a smile from someone much older than you are. It is in a cheek to cheek dance, a chocolate dessert and it’s finding an old book of poems and rereading them until it feels like hugging an old friend. Hurry you only have 31 shopping days left for your 2011 JOY. But the 2012 JOY goes on sale Jan. 1st just in case you get too busy between now and then with Holiday parties. Your allotment of JOY is waiting for you.

Here’s a little gift item, blue chocolate covered blueberries, Bluez Hydriate (because even if we hate France politically, French sounding names can garner higher prices: Avion, Yoplait case in point). The ad copy reads, “These moist dried berries are covered in milk chocolate.” Whoa. Back up. These moist dried berries? Which is it? Guess the guys down in marketing did a Focus Group and found out people who buy $10 boxes of candies don’t like the idea of eating shriveled up blueberries. And not only are these “rare exotic delicacies” (which you can find growing wild in fields anywhere from Canada to the Mason-Dixon line) covered in chocolate, they come in (drum roll please) “a savory tin”. What the what? Okay, if you are a billy goat I can see why a Currier and Ives 6″ tin might appeal to the eye. But for me and my household, we’ll stick to the chocolates inside.

And if you are someone who changes their $300 perfume as often as you change your $500 designer underwear, or if you delight in dousing yourself in noxious fragrance and stepping into a crowded elevator with 25 floors to go, just to be noticed…you are in luck. This year all the big perfume players announced they are offering florals from a garden. (So that’s where flowers grow?). In fact, one high end ‘parfum’ vendor notes that while their bottle art does feature a poppy, poppies have no fragrance at all. So the scientists in the back room with the “NOSE” (the person who decides if we will swoon or puke) created a vanilla, lilac and violet scent. This, I assume, is exactly what a poppy would smell like, if alas, a poppy could exude even the faintest odor. A moment of silence to lament the poor poppy and the dip-wad who designed a bottle using a flower with no fragrance. Oops, sounds like a highly paid yuppie designer just joined the 99%,,,good luck getting another job.

Meanwhile back in the Northwest everyone is talking about buying locally from small shops this Holiday season. Buy hand knit caps, hand carved candlesticks and eat home made ice cream. Why just the other day I heard a radio ad touting the value of buying locally from small businesses. It was by American Express.

And I would be remiss this season if I didn’t mention the TV ads. A new all time low features small girls talking about what they will be when the grow up. “I want to be an astronaut, a baker, a ballerina…because she said I can.” She? Angelou, Meir, Ride, Bhutto? Nope, Barbie.

Seriously do these advertisers think we are all morons? Apparently so.

“No,” my buddy Jim screamed, “you don’t slow down. You go faster so that your are riding only on top of the bumps. You don’t want to sink into the valleys.”

I screamed back into the wind, “What are you crazy? Like taking the moguls on a ski slope? That’s suicide.”

“Stomping on the brakes will actually cause you to go into a spin. Try it my way, trust me.”

I did and he was right.

But staying with the momentum of ‘full out or stop’ took more internal ‘umph’ than Formula 1 driving skills. My worldview of scarcity (and let’s face it, a through acculturation in a stern German household) still drums in my ears, ‘hold back you never know what’s around the corner.’ Well, duh, going slow doesn’t help that does it? I am having to face facts in the face of October. I cannot control one stupid thing in my life so why not live full out? Why not choose to be fearless and frolic with laughter, color and hope?

Behold October. She heralds the inevitable winter. And frankly it’s as if the month is clueless as to what is about to happen. The blue sky pops out against the raucous colors of the trees. Even in temperate zones the Iceplant, Firebush and Liquid Ambers splash red, yellow and orange with abandon. Each leaf hand-painted; glazed stained-glass on a stem. Alas, from whence comes all this joy? I want to blow a whistle and slap Autumn in it’s cool wet face and scream, “Hold on to your color, release it slowly. Don’t be so shortsighted. Watch your back, Jack Frost wants to move in and claim your turf. Why don’t you hold back? Have you no fear?” Apparently not.

The month of October is generous to our senses and kind to our souls. The song of angels echos in the wild wind, swirls about my feet and there is nothing for it but to allow the dance to commence. October just hasn’t got it within her to be stingy. It is almost painful to watch what the lack of propriety provides. Hilarity gushes forth at every turn along with the overflowing gutters.

Perhaps the melancholy that sits in the pit of my stomach is that I know about winter…that she-devil spewing silent barren landscapes of blue-tinted dunes.  I know that life can offer up a very cold shoulder after a time of rapid creativity. Ah, how I bask and flourish in the illusion of control. And doesn’t every writer know the gut wrenching nausea after three straight days of writing pure gold you wake up and the muse has left the building. Forget the Ides of March, spring is in the air then. It’s the Ides of October that should put the fear of God into you. And I ask you, is this Autumnal grande finale saying, ‘toss your cares to the wind, ride the top of the bumps and trust’? Or am I hearing Peggy Lee singing, “is that all there is, my friend?” Bets the heck out of me.

So, I will collect the shiny leaves for tonight’s centerpiece. And even though I know full well I will wake up the next morning to find shriveled useless brown remains I will have my moment of art from nature. And thanks to October I have decided to celebrate the life I have today, right now, in the moment.

Last night I went to a dance (think Prom for old farts). I boisterously sang all the words I knew to the songs, which was about a 50-50 ratio. I let my partners swing me around until I was giddy and girlish. And yes I woke up with a stiff neck. But for now, for October, I have promised myself to live full out. It’s the least I can do given the array of wonderment outside my door.

Now even though I am my own boss and can play hooky whenever I want, it’s not the same. First of all no one else is around to play. Second of all, there is something about the chilly air that speaks of producing something. Maybe it goes back to my ancestors, but cold air means moving around and keeping warm. So while I am not going to chop a cord of wood anytime too soon…I will dust off the notes for the next book. I will take out the brushes and paint and canvas. I will schedule more opportunites to speak to groups about their hopes and dreams.

Fall is a good reminder for my friends who are thinking about retirement to plan for a life of excitement. We all know what we want to retire ‘from’…traffic jams, long meetings and micro-managers. But what is it we all want to retire to? As I say, it’s all well and good to say ‘golf’, but what are you going to do the rest of your waking hours?

So go buy your plaid shirt, skirt or tie and think about what all that schooling was for. Maybe, you still have an awful lot left to give others. This doesn’t have to be difficult, expensive or time consuming. Just listen to the next time you say, “somebody ought to do something about that” and consider that might be you!

Or simply put we run out  of stamina in a dry spell.  How many people, the day after a great promotion or significant salary increase, say, “I just can’t go on with all this recognition?” Not too many. What bogs us down is the feeling (or actual proof) that we are not valued and are not seen for the contributions that we could and do make.

So it’s time for a little self-management. If you have noticed that your attitude has dropped altitude maybe you need to find out what’s missing. If you hear other people being praised for work you did it can feel like a body hit. You have a few choices. You can try to be a bit more assertive and let people know when something was your idea. But if it’s your boss who is hogging all the glory, stop and look around. What is the dynamic? If the boss is the owner’s daughter (or favorite recruit), it’s probably not going to do you any good to try to get noticed. It will look like grandstanding at best and petty jealousy or lying at worst. So think out of the inbox. Where can you contribute to your workplace (or community) that your gifts will be noticed? Write an insightful article for the company newsletter. Head up the next charity drive, or form a workplace team Walking For the Cure. In other words, don’t fester if the horse you are on isn’t moving, switch horses.

You may have to start that night class you promised yourself and increase your skills for a lateral move, or a move to another branch office. The point is if you come home every night with the same sob story of how the other person is stealing your thunder, or the boss doesn’t appreciate you you are going to start sounding like Al in the Happy Days TV sitcom, “Did I ever tell you the story about Rosa Coletti?” And at that point all the cast can mouth the words to Al’s story because he told it all the time, but never did anything about it.

To get up steam you need to see light at the end of the tunnel. Take time to write up your career goals. Write up a plan on how to get those goals. If you don’t know what it really takes to reach your vision, start informally interviewing people (or read their bios) of how they got to be where you plan to be someday. Was it more school, internships, or even a week-end job learning a new skill base? Meanwhile, take advantage of any and all education, workshops and seminars at work. Let your current employer train you to be the best you can be. If when you are at work you see it as a place to gather skills and try new creative problem solving methods on the  way to your dream, the steam will return.