Thoughts on Boredom

Dear Readers,

I grew up with a mother who did not tolerate boredom.  And boy did we learn quickly.  The second one of us whined, “I’m bored,” we were sentenced to vacuum the living room, wash the dishes, or weed the garden.  (Not that we didn’t regularly do these chores, mind you; I'm talking extras.)  We learned to either find something to do or be content being bored without anyone else knowing of our plight.

As I got a bit older and got an AOL Instant Messenger account (I know, right?) I had so many conversations along these lines:

Friend: ‘Sup?

Me: Not much, just playing Solitaire/listening to Plus One/reading a book.  How about you?

Friend: Bored.

Me: Why don’t you do something about it?

Friend: What?

Me: Go play with chalk.  Dye your hair.  Read a book.  Invent a language.  Quit whining.

Friend: Whatever.  I’m bored.

And I simply couldn’t understand.  Why wouldn’t you do something else – or at least shut up about it?  Because if you’re whining to me, I’m going to assume that you’d like my advice on how to better your situation – and by golly, I’m going to give you my advice.

But now with my current job, I’m experiencing a little boredom.  In fact, someone asked me today if I was bored, and I actually said yes.  My job this summer goes like this:

Monday – panic panic panic hurry panic hurry 5:00

Tuesday – do stuff, 1:00 sit around and answer phones until 5:00

Wednesday – Friday -    sit around and answer phones, maybe have 1 hour of actual tasks a day.

Okay, it’s a slight exaggeration, but I seem to spend so much time just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.  My usual boredom busters don’t work.  I can’t go play with chalk because I couldn’t hear the phone from outside.  I can’t dye my hair because the smell would make Caleb sick and hair dye is expensive.  I can’t read a book because honestly?  If you walked in the office and saw your employee reading a book while getting paid hourly – what would you do?  Yeah… and that’s the reason I can’t do a lot of other things to fill my time, either: knit/crochet, make jewelry, color, Facebook, Pinterest, blog, etc.  Oh wait…  (Shh… I’m actually at work as I write this, emailing this from my work email to my personal email to post later.) 

And who knows – maybe my boss wouldn’t mind.  But … yeah… that’s not how Momma raised me.

And I hate being bored because it’s such a waste of time!

Actually I just remembered a project I wanted to try (Pinterest) that involves the big office cutter (the one  you’re always afraid people will accidentally use to cut off their fingers)… maybe I’ll go get that.  J

Love and Boredom,

Leah Joy

Pieces of Thoughts Too Long to Tweet

My great-grandma (or someone like that) apparently had a box in her attic labeled "Pieces of String Too Short to Save".  "Why save them?" you may ask, and rightly so.  Because it was the Great Depression and she was Dutch, that's why.

Anyway, sometimes I have pithy thoughts (whatever that means) but they're longer than 140 characters, including spaces and punctuation.  So I thought I'd write a few of them here.

Some people will never be happy.  No matter what the circumstance or what you tell them, they will still find something about which to complain.

I once told someone I always check pockets before doing laundry and she told me she didn't have time to do that because she had so many kids and so much laundry.  I still don't understand this, because one tissue or pen can cause you to have a do a whole load over, if not ruin the clothes entirely, meaning you have to go shopping for more underwear or jeans or whatever, thereby taking up more time than it would have taken to just check the five pockets or whatever.  I figure you don't have time to NOT check the pockets.

Who decided that red and green are Christmas colors?  And then why do other people make home decor in those colors when it's not strictly Christmas decor?  I mean, really, why would you make an owl egg timer in red and green?  Is it supposed to be your Christmas owl?  Is this just a ploy to get me to buy two egg timers so I have one for Christmas and one for other seasons?

And now it's so definitely bedtime.

I made a mug for Zoe today using my new Pebeo Porcelaine pen.  I'm going to bake it in the morning and then fill it with Jell-O tomorrow night, so I'll let you know how it goes!

Love and Graham Crackers,
Leah Joy

Posting From My Own Laptop??

The page opened!  This is so exciting because it hasn't been able to for a long time now!

This summer is very crazy for me!  This is the first job I've ever had in the summer like this.  My first few summers of work involved nannying, which didn't really feel like work (well, sometimes, but not like a desk job or something).  Then I worked a summer of housekeeping at Cornerstone which involved lots and lots of cleaning, which I really enjoyed, actually.  It was 8 hours a day, but we started at 6 in the morning, so I still had lots of free time after work.  The next summer I worked as a cashier at Salvation Army and I only got 6-hour shifts there, so I had lots and lots of free time!  And then this past summer, I worked in the office at the warehouse, and while it was definitely full-time, once I left work, I was done with work.

Now, however, I work 9-5 in the office, and then 5pm-9am live under the office.  I'm always here and it's sometimes really hard to detach from work.  Plus, since most of the other staff are salaried (weekly, but still salaried) and I'm hourly, many of them don't understand that I'm only hourly.  When it's not 9-5, I'm just staff family; I just live here.  I don't mind helping, but I also don't want it to become completely invasive and make me a stressed-out ball of tears, because that's what over-committing does to me.

So, my house isn't the tidiest, but I'm discovering that I can't have that in the summer.  Certainly not if I want to do well at work, spend time with my husband, and be a good friend.

In closing, I may post more now that I actually can (fingers crossed), but not every day.  And here's a fun story.  We had a one-night camp for kids entering 1st grade, so they're all 5 or 6.  We only had 9 campers (which is typical - and fun, because then they get to do everything!) and so they all registered up in my office.  One girl came bouncing in and when I asked her name, she said, "My name's Isabel but I go by Izzie but I changed it to Ariel."

Love and Lemonade,
Leah Joy

I Stole My Husband's Laptop

Hi Friends,

Now that I haven't been blogging most of the summer, thoughts are flooding my mind.  There's so much about which I'd love to write.  I really should start writing them down so that when I do have time to blog, I don't run out of topics.

Anyway, I only have a few minutes, so I wanted to let you know that since Blogger updated their format, it doesn't work on my computer.  I don't know if it's the camp's internet security or just that my laptop isn't a spring chicken anymore.  Either way, it works on Caleb's, so I may start stealing that until they find a way to make it more old-chicken-laptop friendly.  Or something.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great rest of the summer!  And I hope I get to write more soon!

Love and Arby's Mozzarella Sticks (guess where we went for dinner!),
Leah Joy