We bought a new couch. That meant re-arranging our living room. And when we put all our electronics in their new home, our TiVo would not boot.

WHAT?! All we did was move it. How could this device betray us so?

Humph. Maybe we didn’t even NEED TV anymore after all. Everyone is talking about cutting the cable. Maybe it’s time.

But…the reason we bought the couch is because I really wanted to relax on the couch and watch TV with my husband. And the TiVo was part of that dream.

A little research later uncovered that our TiVo was 8 years old.

oh.

That’s pretty old for technology. Even though it’s still fantastic that this technology does something that was unimaginable 15 years ago, this unit is old and broken.

We have gotten to the point where the unimaginable is outdated and surpassed.

We got a new TiVo, and it is much fancier. Which makes me realize the Wi-Fi signal in my bedroom is tired and needs a boost.

And there are fixes for that. Not ever that hard to implement.

My new job is going well, so I’m also buying a new car. It’s and electric car, the BMW i3. I love this car because the technology is beautiful and elegant.

Chris and I were watching a documentary of how the car is made. While the first part–which talks about how the carbon fiber is made–has a little narration, the second part has no human voices at all.

There are hardly any humans in this movie. Just these precise elegant and fluid robot machines that do exactly the same thing again and again and again.

I was mesmerized.

These grabby bits and welding bits, raising the body sections and twisting them into their new position for the next robot arm to do its operation.

These are real machines. They are doing a real thing. Those robots are making the car that I am going to drive.

I had a flash back to the huge robot transports in Star Wars. And al the droids. Those robot machines looked dirty and tired, and amazing.

We have surpassed science fiction now. Now a fully electric powered car is assembled by clean precise and elegant robot androids.

These are the droids you are looking for.

Until the next model comes out. And it will be even better.

On a celestial seasonings tea tag I saw this quote:
What the mind can conceive, it must also therefore achieve
– Margaret Fuller

I am beginning to rethink my amazedness at all the new technologies and possibilities, honestly. It’s a cliché to say, “It’s all so amazing!”

So I am looking at it even differently.
If what we conceive we achieve….
If the stuff of science fiction is become reality…

We need to imagine even harder!
I am earnestly working to expand my horizons of imagination.

I plan to achieve a bigger and broader vision every day. Just imagine.

It’s been a crazy couple of years. Life just keeps coming at you, you know? It’s really relentless.

But I’ve been trying on a new philosophy that’s been helping. Let me tell a story that explains it.

A few jobs ago I was responsible for a huge number of videoconference systems. I had to keep almost 200 of these systems spread over a 3000 square mile area working all the time.

Mostly, I asked the people nearest to the systems to go onsite and plug things in or reboot as needed. But sometimes there was nothing else to do but go there myself to fix a problem.

Almost all of the systems were one type. But there were 3 or 4 systems that were a different type, and I wasn’t so familiar with how to fix that different kind of system. My peers in the other region had dozens of this kind of system, and they were very good at fixing them.

Sometimes I would ask one of them for help. And sometimes my peers would sabotage me, by changing passwords and being unavailable to help me when I asked for help.

I had a lot of stress about what to do when THOSE systems broke. I just didn’t know how to fix them.

So one day, I was called to go fix the system there. I was so scared and nervous about how to fix it. I had no idea, and the people who I might call for help would just as likely lie to me as help me. I went into the system full of fear, with a customer leaning over me complaining about how it needed to work right now and it hadn’t worked for a long time.

I poked at it. I got to a certain level. Then I didn’t know what to do next.

I had been revving at the highest level, freaking myself out about how much I didn’t know these systems. I decided I needed a part from Radio Shack (remember those? They figured prominently in that particular job) and that was the only next step I could take.

I looked up what stores were in the area, and whether they would have the part I needed. I was very stressed about it, and was having some trouble finding a place that had it in stock.

And then I just got tired. I was so tired of drowning myself in panic over what might happen, I just decided that no matter what it would be ok.

I tried that on for a little bit. I drove to the first Radio Shack, and they had closed down. I held on to my peace–the idea that everything would be ok. I drove to the next Radio Shack, got there before they closed and bought the part.

I rode in the eye of a hurricane, with peace surrounding me because I just couldn’t sustain all that worry. The intimidation of the new technology; the hostile environment of my traitorous co-workers; the unreasonable expectation of the user on site–I let them all fall. I thought, “I am doing the best I can. There is nothing else I can do. If I stop freaking out, I will actually be able to think about solving the problem better. Let’s try that.”

So I did. And it wasn’t perfect, but I jerry-rigged the system into 99% functionality, got the users grudging approval and got the job done.

I’d like to say I changed my outlook after that. But really, for years to come I spent more time in the hurricane than the quiet eye.

Except for now. I’m trying it with more determination. What if I decisively choose to see the bright side?

It’s not like the dark side or the trouble isn’t’ there. But most of the troubles are in the future. What if I choose to imagine and see that things will work out?

I am trying it. I wake up every morning and write down the good things I want to have in my day. Things like peace, trust, playfulness, appreciation and accomplishment.

Then I look for it, and it seems to show up pretty often.

To be sure, when I woke up every morning and looked for frustration and failure I found that more reliably. Upon reflection, however, I would much rather have good things.

So I’m looking for those and I’m seldom disappointed.

At that moment, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. As a sheltered girl, I married at age 21 and I divorced him at age 26.

Every single thing in my life pointed toward me not divorcing. Everyday I pictured myself climbing a sheer cliff by myself, hanging on with my fingernails, wind howling and me desperate to get to safety.

I did get past it.

As real as that picture of myself clinging to the side of a cliff, a new picture emerged. I had crested the sheer rock cliff. I was on a flat grassy plain.

I remember lying flat on the grass too exhausted to move, grateful as big as the world that I made it. That I didn’t have to strive for the moment. I could rest.

As the weeks went by, I rolled over and looked up for a path.

It was an obstacle-free swatch of green inviting grass. I didn’t have to go anywhere. I didn’t have to be anywhere.

It was a return-to-Eden feeling of peace, possibility and rest.

My life began to enter time again. Slowly. It took a while.

And while I was recovering, I reveled in the freedom to choose anything.

But I began to choose goals. To have things I held up as requirements. And after time I got really attached to those definitions of security and success.

The mists of time have fogged my memory. I am not sure that time remains the hardest thing I’ve done. A lot of life has happened since.

But I’ve been thinking about that grassy swath at the top of the cliff. How I didn’t have to choose anything.

And whatever I did choose would be the right choice.

I’m coming up with a new idea. That it doesn’t really matter which I choose–in any choice or specialty in my life. The critical factor is to choose a thing and stick with it until it’s complete or it’s clear it is not what I want anymore. In the years that followed, I found myself clinging to sheer cliffs again. And it’s often because I was convinced that no other choice was possible.

And

The grassy swatch could maybe have been achieved faster in those times if I had stopped clinging to a choice like it was my only hope.

In retrospect, the peaceful place was more about limitless choice than almost any other characteristic.

If I’m looking for the one and only super specific answer or key, that door is going to stay locked

But if I turn around,

Look at the open field,

I can see I have all the options.

I like to keep my options open.

It was almost ten years ago, that I planted bulbs in my backyard. I’ve written about this before. Those bulbs grew every year and made my little patch of dirt radiant! I did nothing to help them, and yet they graced me with hyacinths and daffodils every spring.

What a return on the effort!

For the last few years, though, the flowers have been fewer. So, when my husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I said “Bulbs.”

I was thinking hyacinths, to fill in the ones that were fading. I figured that bulbs must have a lifespan, and my bulbs had done a great job for 10 years. Time to lay in a new crop.

I did get bulbs for Christmas. So many! However, none of them were hyacinth. I was glad to have new ones to try, but I really wanted more of the hyacinths that had entranced me so.

I went down to the local nursery, thinking I could find some hyacinths and plant them all at the same time. I did find the bulbs, which were half off (yay!). No hyacinths, though.

I asked the clerk, “Do you have hyacinth bulbs?”

“Oh no, those have to be planted earlier. We don’t have any now.”

First, I was totally dismissive in my mind of his assertion that hyacinths must be planted earlier. My ten years of blooms were planted in January so I knew something of how to be successful.

I explained to him that my bulbs were dying out. He nodded, and asked if they had shoots of leaves year-round, but no blossoms.

Huh. The daffodils did have that problem. A year or two after I planted the daffodils, I noticed that they didn’t die off like they used to. The flowers fell off, but the leaves remained. And they stayed up all year.

I respected him a bit more now.

He went on to explain that the bulbs were reproducing, and were crowding together. This resulted in leaves but no flowers. If I went in, dug up the bulbs and discarded, or broke up the bulbs and planted them with more room they could bloom.

So. I did just that. I bought the rest of the half-off bulbs, no hyacinths but I am willing to see what Freesia can do for me.

I planted them all, dug up the crowded daffodil bulbs and replanted what I could. 100 bulbs!

Now in February they are starting to bloom.

For the first time in years, I see a daffodil.

Somehow, I thought the daffodils were doing fine. The leaves looked perfectly healthy. And if all I wanted was leaves, they did a great job of being leaves.

I have done that. I have been in places in my life when I was almost what I wanted. Fine. No problems, not really. But something missing, not my full potential.

These bulbs needed room. They had been so successful that they had crowded themselves out of blooming.

My cousin said something to me a couple weeks ago. “You can’t use the same skills that got you here to take you forward.”

Daffodils had something to show me about that. It was horrifying for the daffodil to get the cure. I dug them up, tore off their leaves, ripped apart the roots and stuck them into a new patch of dirt to make of it what they would.

And for me to tear myself up and do whatever it is that will take me to the next level feels horrifying too.

And I see one has made a flower already.

It’s the season to bloom.

I started a new job three weeks ago. Three years ago, I was working in a job that lasted nine years. Then they laid me off. So in the last two and a half years, I’ve had six jobs.

I didn’t love that job that lasted for nine years. I wasn’t sorry to leave. But even though people there were mean to me, it was maybe 1% better than having no one notice me at all as I was looking for work.

Those old co-workers were horrible, but nobody can be as horrible to me as I can be to myself.

All alone, trying to figure out how to get the attention of these hiring managers, I struggled. Is this resume right? I read all the advice and all of it conflicted. As I doubted by job application’s worth, I doubted my own worth even more.

Maybe they were right to ignore me. Maybe I was a terrible worker and I would justifiably never work again.

So. I turned to my beloved Internet. I had been posting a little bit, and people wished me luck. But because I was so desperate for a light at the end of the tunnel, I invented a story.

If I worked to apply for 100 jobs, sometime before I hit 100, I would have an offer. I started to share this story with my Internet friends. Job application 1 submitted, 99 more to go. I even amped it with hashtags:

#jobsearchrockstar #diligencediva

I was acting like it would happen. I was not at all sure it was true, but I decided that believing it was true was better than thinking I would never work again. So when I started to think “I will never work again. I wonder if I will live in a tent in Nevada” I went to apply for another job, and did another post

job application #2

98 more to go

#jobsearchrockstar #diligencediva

It worked the first time. And then I got laid off, and it worked the second time. And then I was FIRED and it worked the third time and the fourth time.

There is a power in stories. I made up a story to comfort myself, and I gave it a happy ending before I got to the happy ending.

I made up a fiction where I was the victorious hero. And then I went and lived that story.

Maybe I need to make the story a little longer, flesh it out PAST the point where I get hired and into the part where I have a lovely experience with a boss that loves me and I can do enjoyable work that is valued.

I’m working on that. So far my new boss seems to like me. I better keep writing this story to stay ahead of the present.

The ending is going to be awesome.

So, in my house, the people that sell us our telephone line also sell us the cell phone package and the cable TV we use.
Nearby, at the corner near the freeway, there is a gas station. It has an automatic car wash. A lot of the time when I buy gas there, I also wash my car.
The first example, the phone company calls it a bundle. The gas station doesn’t call it a bundle, but it kind of is. I used to only go to that gas station when I wanted my car washed. But now, because I have tried it a few times, I will go there just for gas. In fact, honestly, I go there for gas more than I do for the car wash.
Here’s something I’ve noticed about bundling. It’s worth thinking about. What is the nature of the things we consider groups?
For instance, I bundle cream and sugar with my coffee.
When it comes to my cable TV, cell phone and home telephone, I don’t have to bundle it. I could buy it all separately.
At this moment in time, I have bundled waking up with checking my phone. I don’t have to check my phone. I could do something else.
Taking a second look at the way I do things, I can see if there might be another way.
There are a lot of things that didn’t used to be bundled but now are. 20 years ago, no one would have checked their phone when they first work up. But our phones got all tangled in other things.
The smart phone was invented. And it got so smart, the phone part was the least of it.
So with the other habits I’ve developed, maybe I could unbundle some stuff.
It used to be that publishing a book was bundled with finding an agent and getting a publisher. Well, that’s unbundled. You can do it yourself using the platforms developed by other people.
There are so many possibilities now. I’m wondering what things I’ve assumed are one unit that are ready to be unbundled. What barriers have I assumed my whole life, but when I take a closer look, they aren’t even there anymore? There are far more ways to redefine my life if I let myself see it.
I am still considering dropping cable TV.

Amazon makes a list of all the ones I read on Kindle. I read most books on Kindle. There were a few.

IT”S FUN TO REMEMBER BOOKS! my old friends. Here they are:

People talk about how school children interact with their phones. I love my phone, and I really need it to keep me from going crazy. i tell you, if I hadn’t hd things to listen to when Veronica was a newborn I don’t know how I woul dhave survived.

But now there is a new form of crushing boredom.

Schoolwork.

The homework Veronica takes home from second grade is not possible for her to do alone. It required a HUGE amount of help from me.

Also, as the mom, I get to recieve a lot of pushback that a teacher would not have to tolerate.

We have a new way of pracicing her spelling words. I have her spell the word out loud, correcting any error by speaking, and then she writes it down.

This gives her a little more practice in writing too, which is really needed.

But it’s soul crushingly boring. For both of us.

I have to resist checking my phone for stuff to think about. THERE IS NO BREAK. She fights me every step and at any second there will be something I need to correct.

SHe would love to be watching Youtube as well.

But I actually CAN read texts while she is spelling a word. But I can’t be distracted by it. The words keept coming.

In the current model of parenting, schools rely heavily on parents handling the homework. I do not remember my parents helping me this much. Maybe my older brothers did. But my daughter’s schoolwork is almost impossible to complete without parental help.

And second grade has a lot of homework. Even Christmas vacation has special homework: a family history project. She is supposed to write out 3 pages, using primary and secondary sources of information about her family. One page must be a map.

The standards are pretty high for a second grader. Primary and secondary sources? really? yet again parental intervention is required.

But this is a special problem for me. I can’t do it for her…I have to coach her into creating the project that will meet the requirements.

So I ask, what is the most interesting thing about your family?

“I think the most interesting thing about my family is that I have four uncles.”

She answers in complete sentences. Just like that.

Uncles. So I check with the teachers if uncles are okay, yes they are.

So now I set up the video calls.

Veronica and I actually worked out a few questions that would follow the spec. She will ask them about what it was like for them in second grade.

When she talked with my oldest brother, she asked what she had asked the rest, “What school did you go to for second grade?”

He didn’t quite remember. He and I reviewed our remembered family history and named three schools before finally remembering the right one.

And then it came up that he’d skipped 3rd grade.

I never knew that.

I told him I’d skipped 8th grade.

He never knew that.

There’s a theme song for new years- Auld Lang Syne. It says: “Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind…”

Well, maybe there’s a lot of old acquaintance we never knew to even forget. And also, maybe there are new things that our old acquaintances have matured into.

There’s new stuff happening even in the old stuff.

My daughter has her future all mapped out at 7. She is a planner. She is going to marry her best friend and invent a time machine.

“But I need to finish school because there is a lot I need to know about building a time machine.”

Right about now, the future starts to knock on the door. We are coming up to the new year, and in between the wrapping and the mailing of the cards I think about what I’d like to have happen in my new year.

Goals. Resolutions. Dreams. Wishes.

I can often imagine a goal.

YES.

THAT.

And it’s so clear to me that I can almost reach out and touch it. Like the story of the spoiled child who wishes for the moon.

It’s right THERE.

No. It’s not. As clear as my vision of the desired goal is, it’s not here yet.

There are a lot of steps to go through. Funny how those steps do not seem as clear and present as my vision of the goal.

There are a lot of steps.

I like how Veronica is aware that her goal has steps. I like that she is completely confident that the steps to arrive at her goal of inventing a time machine are simply waiting to be taken.

Her definition of the steps is a good one too: learn more things.

I probably need to learn more things to pull down the moon too. It may be easier than I thought. And in learning and trying, I may discover the right sort of moon-type object I was really trying to get.

But I won’t know if I don’t try and learn.