Rain Down Blessings

Wow! The past 24 hours have been very rainy and cold. It almost feels like late September or early October. It only got into the 50's today. I had to finally break down and let my furnace run a little bit! I'm running my furnace in August?!!! This is crazy. I'm supposed to go to the New West Fest in Fort Collins this weekend, but the rain may change all that! At the very least, I am going to see my friends, John, Lyndsey, and Jackson and go to church with some other friends. They have been asking me to go to their church with them for several weeks, so I thought I would do that this weekend. They attend a Catholic Church, so hopefully, I won't get too lost and look too obvious when they do their liturgy.
I love the sound of the rain outside! I have a comfy sweatshirt on, cats lying on my legs, and the warmth and sanctity of my home. Life is good! I am blessed. I know I have been griping about things with work a lot lately. Things are still frustrating, but in moments like now and the thoughts of blessings on my mind, it is hard to be pessimistic or frustrated with work. I am thankful and will enjoy my weekend and not think about work. I will take time this week to invest in the things that remind me of how good life is at the moment. I have friends, babies, and family that make my life fuller every day.

Lucky

I am so lucky, no blessed, to have such amazing friends!!!! My friends' support gives me encouragement and support. It helps me take one more step forward when things are tough and discouraging. I am blessed that God gives me these angels in the flesh to help me through this journey. :)

Online Photo Album

Just an FYI...I am creating an extensive web album. You can look at it by visiting http://picasaweb.google.com/jennbo1972.

Perfection

Unfortunately, the title sounds cheerer then I feel. I feel less then perfect and actually very discouraged. Things at work are going badly and I feel like an utter failure at my job. I feel like I am viewed as incompetent and needing to find another job. I think I have done the best I can at my job given the work load, expectations, and poor communication about what my job entails. Unfortunately, none of that counts. It also doesn't count that I have done some really good things with my program. SIGH. It seems like they want perfection with unrealistic expectations. One of my bosses actually told me that he expected me to walk on water (half in jest I realize but not completely in jest). My response was I wasn't Jesus. Only Christ can attain this level of perfection.

Perhaps, I am the one who is unrealistic. Perhaps, I really am lousy at what I do. All I know is that my feet are dragging and I can barely go forward. I want to cry at the end of the day and dread getting up in the morning. I need a break and a long vacation. Although, the new person might show me up and really make me look bad. Ah, my pride is extremely wounded right now. That's never a good thing, because my pride isn't exactly God-honoring, only Me-honoring. I really need Jesus to hang onto me, because I certainly can't hold on anymore.

Lovin the Lassies and Laddies

This weekend I attended the 1st Annual Fort Collins Irish Festival. I had a great time and spent way too much money. I got to find out what county in Ireland my family is most commonly associated with, County Clare. I continue to enjoy learning about my Irish history. The music was great this weekend and I bought some fun things. I got a cute dress, a Celtic sarong, a ring, necklace, perfume, a County Clare sticker for my car, and some Irish music. I was contemplating skipping on the Estes Park Highlands Festival, but I may not be able to resist. I love hearing all of the Irish accents!
I also found out that there is going to be some sort of get together through the Clan Cian featuring my clan (O Hannon). In fact, the guy at the booth I went to said that if I found him at this event, he would introduce me to the "O Hannon". I have no idea what he is talking about. My guess would be that this is the head of the clan. The event is to take place in Highlands Ranch. I don't know if I will go. I already have a BBQ next weekend and an opportunity to hear Rita Davenport with Arbonne (down in Denver). I haven't decided if I am going to Denver or not. This is going to be an incredibly busy week. I finished up with the festival, but tomorrow I take two ladies in my program to Estes Park, Tuesday I go to Littleton for a meeting and then back up to Estes Park for a Mercy Me Concert. In addition, one of the individuals in my program is going with me and he is staying at my house that night, since he lives over an hour away from my house. I take him back Wednesday morning and then I go back up to Estes that night to hear Jaci Velasquez in concert. I am teaching a training class Thursday morning, going over for a new home visit Thursday afternoon and then collapsing. WHEW! This is going to be a whirlwind week.
Well, happy memories of the Irish Festival will hopefully keep me going. Most of this week is full of fun things, which is better then busy for mundane reasons. :)

Desert

Here I sit on my bed with crackers and wine. Not the healthiest of meals, I know, but I find my appetite lacking tonight, despite feeling a little hungry. I feel discouraged, anxious, and hopeless. Granted, I don't feel anything like I do when I am truly depressed and I am thankful for that. However, I still feel achy inside. I feel like I am alone in a desert. I lift of my voice in lament, but there is no one to listen, no one to comfort. I know I have plenty of people to listen to me and offer comfort, but right now, it seems like it wouldn't really soothe. I know there are people who love and value me. I know God loves and values me. Yet, I am shaken by the critical voices, the judges, and the finger pointers. They cloud my ability to see the people who love and embrace me. The negative voices tell me how much I have screwed up. They tell me that I am incompetent and insufficient. If they aren't telling me that, they are trying to take control of my life and take away my independence. I want to fight back and defend myself and my cause, but I feel helpless and weak. I feel like I will only hurt myself more and give them an advantage to gain further control of me. I feel like people I considered allies are to be mistrusted because they really do not have my best interests in mind. They try to find out things about me behind my back rather than coming to me and asking me directly what happened or how can we fix this to be better. Right now, I only trust one person at my work and that is the other coordinator at my office. Everyone else is a threat. I am working as hard as I can and doing my best with the little support I have at work. It feels like that is not good enough and I am expected to be superwoman. It feels like if I can't do everything, I am incompetent and need to be disciplined, despite the fact that I am doing more than what I should be required to do (my counterparts don't do the same job duties). I feel like someone is trying to take away essential parts of my job that I am proud of doing. Again, someone else is taking control. I want things to go back to how they were when my friend worked with me and she was the boss. She understood and gave support where she could. She didn't talk to me like I was a little child and she certainly never tried to take away my power and flexibility. I am happy where she is now and wouldn't want her to be at work. She is so blessed to be a full time mom! I love her so much! She is my encourager, exhorter, and champion. If you are reading this, thank you, sweetie.
I know I only seem to write when I am discouraged or depressed. I don't always write about the happy things in life. As a way to try and counter some of this and help me feel lifted up and encouraged, I am attaching some pictures that make me smile and remind me that I am blessed.

Dawn and Scott at Austen's Baptism

Me holding Austen

My precious Dante

My Sweet Agape

Where I would like to be right now.

Treading Water

It has been "one of those days". This is the kind of day you feel like you're in a great big ocean, no land in sight, and you are simply treading water. You hope someone comes to rescue you before the sharks start to circle. I find myself relishing in being alone, nurturing quiet and peace. If only the rest of the world would cooperate and leave me alone. This is the challenge of being on call for work and available 24/7 via cell phone. Otherwise, I would turn off my phone and shun the world right now. My nerves feel frazzled and I feel overwhelmed. I hate days where the only things I feel I accomplished were things that suddenly came up and meetings. I like the feeling of accomplishing scheduled tasks and get upset when I have to put those on the back burner to deal with last minute issues. If it wasn't for my new assistant program manager, I would be pulling my hair out because I can't get my job done. She is saving me in so many ways and I am extremely thankful for her.

I am frustrated with different things, most of them dealing with work. I am frustrated with our overseeing agency which seems to think that I have to hold to a standard they don't have to reciprocate. They get after me for not doing something, but they in turn do the same thing towards me. I am having particular issues with one individual who appears to have some issues with me. I don't' know for sure, but her tone and attitude towards me lately has been unpleasant and I feel like she treats me as though I am stupid. I feel I need to talk with her about this, but I haven't figured out the proper avenue. I have to gear up for confrontation. I hate confrontation for several reasons. First, I fear coming off as impolite, rude, or mean. Second, what I really want to say and express isn't appropriate, but I struggle with expressing my feelings appropriately and professionally. I don't want to be accusatory and yet in my heart, that is what I fear. When I feel I have to plan for confrontation, it usually means that I am pretty upset with the person and they have hit my buttons. This isn't confrontation towards a loved one who I want to encourage to make right decisions. This is confrontation because I am mad and I feel I have been disrespected, dishonored, (or someone I care about) or something unjust has happened. It's mostly the first two. This is what is going on with this one individual. It is what happened while I was a staff at camp a couple of weeks ago. Someone has made an attack on me personally and now I want to defend myself, preserve myself. instead, I fear I will say something that will make me look bad and I let people walk all over me. This only fuels the fire I feel inside and is not productive. It seems either want to confront aggressively or go passive (both modeled to me growing up). I can't seem to find that nice in between called assertiveness. This has been such a struggle for me throughout my life. I wish it were easier to confront. I would love to just say, "this is wrong, I don't like it, it needs to change". Instead, I freeze. I also fear that I won't be listened to and that will make me feel worse. I've had many instances in my life where I have tried to speak my voice or opinion and been silenced or ignored. That's just as bad, if not worse, then the incident that led to the confrontation.

The only good thing coming out of my water walk is it makes me more reliant on God's strength. All I really want is to feel him hold and comfort me. I just want to feel his presence and find peace in him. I really want my soul to find peace rather then this restless, uptight feeling I have experienced today. I want worry to go away, I want pressure to perform go away. I want to "be" and not "do". It's hard to "be" when you are treading water and looking out for sharks. You have to "do" to survive. It's sink or swim (or be eaten, but that probably qualifies as sinking). My spirit feels heavy and weighted down.

I really think it is time for vacation. I need to rest and free my mind from everyone else's problems and issues. I need to be Jenn and not just someone who fixes things, works at Good Shepherd, and takes care of people. I think I will need to put in my vacation time off form tomorrow. If it is in, I know I will have a chance to sit on land for a while and not just survive.