In Route

J.'s plane has departed Minneapolis and is due home 'early' - 11:30PMish. He should be home by 1:00AM ish - though I secretly hope not to notice 'cuz I want to s...l...e...e...p through the night. Or at least until 4, as is my usual wakening time.

Good, productive day - Senora Cranky Pants has left the building. Must have just been a 'Monday' kind of day yesterday 'cuz today was great and productive and fun! Back to plowing away through everything without giving a second thought to anyone else around me or their workloads vs. mine, etc. Just in a mood yesterday, I guess. It happens. The key is to not let one bad day become two..and two to become three....and then before you know it, you're pretty much cranky and stressed all the time. Not good. And it doesn't work. Stressing out about things...wishing you weren't having to go in....giving in to the physical signs of stress...doesn't work. The only person you can control is you - and stress isn't created by work or other people. It's created by YOU...by how you're reacting to things. I couldn't remember/embrace that yesterday but I'm back to 'normal' now and it's all back to being pretty clear. I am who I am; I do what I do....and I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it 'cuz that just bogs me down. And there's far too much to do to let that happen too often.

It helps me to think of it that way. May not work for everyone...but for me, that works. Just focus on the one person I know the best - ME. I can control me. I know me. I trust me. I work like a maniac all the time...it's what I do and sort of 'who I am'. I didn't like that about myself yesterday but heck, why am I feeling bad about that? It's not a bad thing to love what you do and work really hard at it. At least I enjoy it! I'm really blessed to have a job that I really love. It's never boring; it's always fun; it's frequently challenging. Those are all great things to say about the thing you have to do to pay for the house, the cars, the kids, the food, etc. Blessed. That's the word to hold on to - especially in this economy when so many are struggling.

I didn't even mind having to walk in the rain to show my boss where all the repair work was done last week. Walking around the entire school, locating the other areas we plan to have repaired as soon as possible. Watching him climb a wall to illustrate how kids are getting on the roofs (on the weekends when the gates are locked but they climb over anyway and go up on the roofs and mess with the HVAC units up there). It was slightly drizzly and a bit cold but I didn't mind a bit. Yesterday, that same scenario would have had me all grumpy and grumbling. Today, it was a fun walk in the rain - thankfully not a downpour - just a nice drizzle. It was refreshing.

Isn't it amazing what a difference 24 hours can make?

(I'm going to bookmark this post for myself so I can read it when I have another cranky day...it will happen. Hopefully, not soon...but they do happen. I'll just keep working hard at not having them become my 'norm').