So, I’m beginning my first attempt to get certified.

There are a billion and one kinds of certifications in the information techonology field.

I’m going for Project Management Professional- PMP

I have resisted certifications.  I resist them, because the ones that apply to me seem to be just a piece of paper to say that I can do what I already could do before I got the piece of paper.

But this one looks appealing. Honestly, I handle projects all the time. But I see that this is the sort of paper that lets you get a raise. So..I would do a little work to make more money.

I got the exam prep book today. Just finished reading the first chapter.

I am so excited and already sad. They are talking about how things SHOULD be. They even admit…all over the place…that projects don’t happen like this. They say things that are true and yet are not practiced.

The book admits this. It recommends that you pretend as if you do things the right way (like keeping records and documentation on projects) even if you have never even thought of doing that before.

It’s heartbreaking. I so often ask myself why I create forms and file them as records of work done. Why am I doing this? No one asked me to do it. No one is checking to see if I did it.

BUT HERE! Here in this book they confirm that keeping records is the right thing to do, while admitting that tons of people don’t.

It takes faith, I think. It takes faith to do the right thing when everyone around you is indifferent, or even mildly critical.

To me…this sort of thing is a bit like Scripture. Perhaps it is my German blood that thrills to the idea of work done elegantly and efficiently.

I”m gonna go read chapter 2.

That’s what Chris says anyway.

So…I have been messing with Shelfari. Posted about that already. I have a link on this site to my currently reading list: writtenbymurphy.com/wonderblog/book-page.html

But i’ve been messing with Shelfari…and they don’t have all the books I want to post that I’ve read.

Here is another site, though…where they invite people to share their bookshelves. A PHOTO of your bookshelf

Omnivaracious is associated with Amazon, as is Shelfari. But..well..I don’t know about the photo part. To be honest, I think the photos look posed. no WAY are the books that neat.

But besides, I have a thing about owning books. I own some, yes. But the  majority of books I read I do not keep. Lord, I can’t buy all those books! I would be in the poor house. I get them from the library, and I return them when I’m done.

What I have on my shelves are usually books I intend to read but haven’t. Or maybe not. Some of them are books that meant so much to me that for some reason or another I cannot part with them. Gifts, or ones that pierced my heart with truth or  beauty.

I don’t know. Maybe I should take a photo and see what it reveals.

and staying home.

Normally, I wouldn’t have done that. Normally, I would have gone to work.

But since I got MS I have learned to fear my immune system. I want to keep it quiet, so I have to pay attention when I am sick. I have to pay attention to the little bit of sick so that it doesn’t get more sick and wake the sleeping giant of my auto-immune responses.

I’ll be drinking liquids and resteing today

long day, waiting at the bus stop for the bus.

I was just glad I hadn’t missed it yet. I was tuned into my headphones, standing at the stop with all the other people waiting. It was the other people waiting that let me know I hadn’t missed it.

I sat down in the first seat row. It was a crowded bus. A tall guy in a dodges jacket got up to give a woman in high heels his seat. I had to scoot over and adjust my backpack because this was a full ride.

The woman pointed to my badge. “I didn’t know you worked for [X].”

I didn’t know this person would have known anything about me whatsoever. How could she be surprised that she didn’t know who I worked for?

But I said, yes, and asked her if she worked there too. Obviously she did.

She said that some of the other people at the bus had been talking about me. I had been pointed out as a fellow employee..

“Oh yeah,” another said. “She works at the HQ buiding”

“No,” the other said. “You aren’t allowed to wear jeans there. She can’t.”

But my seatmate had discovered the truth. She saw my badge.

I always thought I was invisible. But I guess not.

My cute dog is learning to heel. She almost doesn’t need to be bribed anymore.

The only trouble is she wants to jump on people. She wants to jump and twirl and generally wiggle at other people, cats, and dogs.

She loves cats.

She is very gentle in most situations, but the initial greeting protocol requires a lot of jumping. I should find out how to introduce another greeting ritual.

It occurs to me that I am tired of outrage.

What’s up with all this outrage all the time? I’m weary of it in other people, mostly as it expresses itself politically.

But I am more than weary of it in myself. Why am I always encountering things that are so far from the way they should be? I generally find this to be so in business.

Outrage has a long shelflife. It doesn’t roll off into quiescence. It stick around, like an artesian well…It just keeps bubbling up.

Halt. I don’t want to face any more outrageous situations.

i’d prefer to laugh and be silly

Just read an article in the journal about new ways for blogs to make money.

And notice, I have upgraded my site and now the monthly archives on the side show a (number). That number says how many posts I made in that month, all the way back to ’02 when I started this thing.

The numbers are embarrassingly low. I thought I posted 3, 4,5 times a week. Which would mean…at least 12 posts a month.

 But I post less than that.

The article suggests that if you take a site with 2000 visitors a day, you could make almost $800 in ad revenue.

I do not have 2000 visitors a day.

But maybe I would have more visitors if I posted more. Maybe then my site wouldn’t just be the internet resource for information about the camia flower and how to make popcorn.

Those are the two most popular posts. Two things that I would never have considered so important have turned out to be the only reason google remembers my name.

SO the lesson learned: Spew forth nonsense frequently. I might hit a jackpot.