It's a beautiful Saturday morning and I am relaxing at home. Relaxing at home seems like such a rare luxury. It also follows a week where I worked hard at the office, and it seems like things were just as hard when I got home in the evenings. It's nice and peaceful right now, and I savor the moment.

A friend at work scanned the photos that were taken at the coronation ball, and I am going to post the photo of me on this page - which explains the potentially longer download time you might experience today. I'm just real happy with how I looked that night, and it's a special memory.


My supervisor asked me to serve on a committee that is planning a game or simulation during the first half of the staff retreat this year. I feel like she must trust me quite a bit to put me in such a visible role in the planning of an event that will be experienced by everyone in the organization. It has been a blast going to the planning meetings - even though they last over two hours each. I get to brainstorm and work with people whose paths otherwise do not cross mine.

In addition to that I am on the subcommittee that is putting together the printed and online versions of the catalog for the upcoming auction later this spring. Staff, former employees, and a few select others will be invited. In the morning there will be a silent auction and in the afternoon will be the live auction. I am helping to sign in the donations one day a week, input the information into the database, and I am completely responsible for building the catalog webpages. Fortunately I have a template from the last internal auction to use for the framework, and the support of the webmaster if I have any questions.

I am still the Head Librarian for the shared drive library and I also design the lunchroom bulletin board, trying to keep that fresh and interesting. This is all in addition to my regular tasks. Every day this week I have come home feeling like there just aren't enough hours in my day, but my work is fun and challenging and I love it. I feel so blessed.

However, I also feel so stressed. LOL

This morning I watched "Sweet Home Alabama" starring Reese Witherspoon. It was a fun movie, but it reminded me a whole lot about my family down South. Michael was joking with me about which parts of the movie might remind me of home, or if this or that was how people acted or spoke or how my family did things.

I feel a yearning to go home... only for a visit, though. Sometimes I wonder if I could even go back there to live. I think I'd be bored within a week, and good luck finding a job that would be challenging and rewarding. It seems like the good jobs are taken by people who will hold them until they die. Of course, with the experience I have now that might be different.

None of that changes the facts, though, of how different I am and how different I think from other folks there. I'd still be the outcast, the different one. I would still have to worry about every move I made, every word I said. That's no way to live. Here in Seattle I can just be me, and that's more precious than almost anything. Freedom.

That movie planted thoughts in my head that I can go back, that I can have everything, and I know its not true. How many times have I tried it - and been burned? I just have to remember that, and remember how happy and fulfilled I am here, and that eases the pain of separation a little. Sometimes I wonder if I'm making the right choices... but we just do the best we can, right?

I just know that if, for some reason, I left Seattle and returned to Arkansas right now, I'd be full of regrets for the rest of my life. Where I am right now I am not full of regrets... I just feel the pang of missing my family. That is, until the next time they're upset with me because I don't conform to their values and ideals, and they judge me and plot to kidnap me back. It's hard to be sentimental when they plot against me.

I still cherish the knowledge, though, that my brothers refused to come get me when my mother last tried to orchestrate that plan. They said that I would only try to find my way back out here again, so what's the use? Thank you, brothers. I know my mom's intentions are good, at least from her point of view, but I really hate being kidnapped.

Well, Michael just rang to get buzzed into the building, and it seems that possibly Mechanic is about to wake up... so I am going to end this now. It was nice to have a couple hours of peaceful interlude.

~Paisley Blue