What the Water Works?

I suppose it's time for another update on our little family. Hubby has been busy gather wood from around our property (still) and recently started staining our purty wood shed that we had built in February. The yard work alone has been keeping us all occupied (well, 3 out of 4 of us-- Boy doesn't care to help out that much), what with harvesting, weeding (LOTS of weeding), watering, pruning, transplanting, etc.

It's funny how as time goes on, Life sort of re-arranges one's "priorities." This can happen in a variety of ways. For me, I'd had getting "The Hangout" finished as a priority, but it's been bumped down a bit because of the gorgeous weather, and. . .

What the Water Works?

I have been extremely busy with learning about managing a "very small water system," and it's about to drive me mad. Compiling information, finding out about how much wasn't done and should have been, what should have been in place but hasn't been, and then there's always dealing with the customers. Every day for a week or two I've been learning something new about water systems (and septic systems). In the past week, I've had to begin the draft of a service policy, write up a "notes/agenda" thing for an upcoming meeting (which I sched'd yesterday for next week), mathematical calculations out the ying-yang (including converting cubic feet to gallons), making a water management notebook, compiling individual customer information to pass out at the meeting, and oh so much more! The other day, I had to set a limit on myself because I was getting so overwhelmed with how much water works I was dealing with-- I'd done about 2 hours or so of the above named items, along with phone calls and whatnot. Still doing the phone call stuff, waiting for call backs, trying to find the person who has the information (may have found one of them-- nice lady) I need so that I can effectively do my job as water manager. All this learning is good for the brain, but doggone! Sometimes, ya just gotta take a break. That's part of why I'm doing this entry here-- it's a break from the past. . . four hours of water work I've been doing! You know what sucks about all this time, though? I don't get paid for it! This be a "free" service I'm providing. You'd think people would be grateful about being billed timely, getting receipts, and receiving information; that is the case with one of the 3 other properties, and one of the others doesn't seem to care much at all. But then there's the one, you know, the notorious customer who is never satisfied and thinks it is his/her place to know everything and/or to know everyone's business. I am striving to remain professional, and believe I'm succeeding. Not only succeeding, but far surpassing the previous managers in the professional way I've been handling the management (previous managers were down to using only "sticky notes with meter reading and amount owed."). I can't say I blame the previous managers much, for not wanting to deal with the "problem customer," but this also makes my job more difficult as it seems I am (to the person's mind) responsible for the past dozen years they've lived here (concerning water and private road?). No clue as to how that's even remotely thinkable.

A large part of Hubby's and my focus has been on obtaining privacy and freedom. We both have issues with people intruding, and I suppose that's sort of "part and parcel" of both of us having PTSD. We each have sacrificed dearly for personal freedom and private property. We do not ask of others what we are not willing to do ourselves. All we want is to be left alone (by the general public) so that we can deal with the gummut of issues we're facing. There's major life adjustments that are immediately before (and behind) us, and we really need to focus our attention to those adjustments. It helps us be better persons, which in turn helps us to be better neighbors and community members, etc to the larger picture.

In the main bathroom, I put up a dollar store sticky thing that says, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." I put it in there so the kids will read it every day, that it will become ingrained deeply in them. I want that in them, because I believe it to be true. "Don't come to the party empty-handed," is the nice way of saying "Don't bring up a problem unless you have a suggestion of how to make it better." That last bit is from how I was raised, and I firmly believe it to this day-- don't mention a problem if you don't have a suggestion of how to fix it. That's why I usually do a lot of background or behind-the-scenes work before presenting something. This squeaky wheel isn't just making noise, it's saying "grease me already!"

How much better would our world be if we each practiced "Be the change you wish to see"? Whether that change is putting the cell phone away while at the register, helping the old lady across the street, or being the kind of manager you'd want to have, "change begins at home." And yet with this, I also believe I have no business telling someone else how to live, because I've go enough of my own life to deal with. A quote I thought of-- which probably isn't an original-- the other day is, "I'm not asking you to not ____________, I'm asking you to not __________ around me." My freedom to "stretch" comes with the limit of not invading someone else's stretching space. I thought it was called being decent or considerate human being or common courtesy, but seeing as the worlds seems to be going to pot. . .

Okay, okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. Don't worry, the soapbox I picked up at the dollar store also. :-)

Oh, speaking of soap, I was browsing around an "all you can get" grocery store (which means they have housewares and clothes and hardware and ______) last night. I needed more razors, as for some reason my legs have decided it's time to prepare for winter, thus requiring more frequent shaving. While reaching for the 4 pack cartridges and looking at the price of nearly $20, I stopped suddenly and thought, Why would I pay $20 for 4 razor replacements which I can only use 3 or 4 times each? Which got me looking at the "disposable" razors. I contemplated this, because the last batch of 4 razor replacements tore up my legs something fierce (I'm still suffering!), and yet my 'disposable' that I took with me on my weekend trip did just fine. Yes, both were new blades, so why the difference? I still can't answer that. What I can say, though, is I decided to try something different. I decided to go with disposables and see if I can get the same amount of shaves out of them, without getting all tore up. Not only that, while I was looking through the disposables, my eyes caught sight of a sort of blurry print pack. . . "made from recycled plastic." Bingo! That's right, I used the cartridges because ??? I wanted to decrease what I put into the landfill? I couldn't quite answer why I was paying so doggone much, and I'm all for reduce/reuse/recycle. I bought the pack of four disposable razors for $6.99. The handle is made from recycled plastic, so that eases my guilt-ridden conscious. And if they perform well (minimum of 3-4 uses per one, without tearing up my legs), then I'll stick with them.

Well, it's nearly 4:30pm and I haven't gotten done any of the work done I wanted to get done because I've been busy with the water works stuff. Needed this little break, and now maybe I can pursue some of my other "to do's" without obsessing over water works. I've done enough of that today!

~Cedeham~