Dee Hathaway

I went to IKEA today (why do they make that all caps? what does it stand for? I Know Everything’s Alright… ya. I got nothing.)

Ya know, whatever This is that gets me all sidetracked, (I blame my distraction) it’s quite progressive, cuz I didn’t even make it past the first sentence before I went sideways this time. Does it seem I’m constantly roaming/traveling?

Anyway…. I went to IKEA today. And yesterday. And the day before. Did I go the day before? I think I might have. Holy crap! You know what? maybe I should just tell you what days this past week I DIDN’T go to IKEA. that’d be a much shorter post.

Today at IKEA, I bought a comforter… and a cover for the comforter. Here in the states, when we buy a comforter (which is actually made in China), it’s enough to buy the comforter. It’s a set usually with 124 different pieces all already assembled (by 9 year old Chinese kids – end of political rant) and it’s a set. In Sweden (AKA Tempe), you buy the comforter and then get a cover for it. With matching pillowcases (ooooh, aaaahhhh). I know. Very splifty.

Well that’s kinda cool. You can just switch covers on the comforter. It’s like a different bed, cuz it’s a different look. but it’s the same bed, just with a better outlook… with different skin. Hey! Wake up!

Oh! speaking of skin… I’m getting so tan!  You can be jealous, it’s ok. I’m gonna change my name to TanMan. You’ll never be as tan as TanMan.

(bring it back, hathaway)

The first thing you do when you get a new comforter and cover, is put the cover on the comforter. OK, the first thing you do is wash the comforter and cover.. THEN you put the cover on the comforter.

That sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? And for some of you I’m sure it would be simple and straight-forward and you’d have it done in 3 minutes and be laying on said cover and comforter watching Grey’s Anatomy. Ya, well, this post is about me (mostly, maybe a little about you) and I prefer to make every experience a learning experience.  Or a lesson.  Or something.

The cover has an opening at the top, just a little snappy thingy, and normally I’m pretty good with the unclasping and accessing, but this one was a little tricky.  (bear with me, the story does get entertaining…)  I got the snaps undone, and figured the best way to get the comforter in the cover was just kinda stuff it in there.  I figured if I could get it in there, I could kinda work the corners and get everything moving smoothly.

So I crammed the comforter in there, and grabbed the bottom corners and worked them out to where they lined up with the cover, and shook the whole thing out.  it shoulda worked.  It worked SO well in my mind, and so not well IRL.

So you know what I decided?  This is the part where you might just shake your head and say you’re never coming back to deehathaway again.

I figured I could do a little spelunking.  I would go inside the cover and spread the comforter out from the inside. Oh ya. I am a man, and I have a plan.

So, picture if you will… me fully inside of the cover with just the feet hanging out of the opening, trying to get all 4 corners of the comforter to line up with all 4 corners of the cover.  Left. Right. Left. Forward. Far corner. Near corner…. I had it all going on!  I was doing everything except succeeding.

So I went through my second birth and exited the cover through the tiny opening realizing that I might have just approached this all in the wrong way. (I CAN admit when I’m wrong… it’s just hard because it doesn’t happen very often..   ) So I pulled the comforter out of the cover to start over.  Sometimes you just gotta go in a different direction.

I decided maybe I should spread out the comforter, and then put the cover on top… just in case I bought a King size comforter and a single size cover (just cuz it was just working out that well) :-/

It turns out that the snaps at the top of the cover are actually the snaps on the SIDE of the cover.  :-/  So for the past 1/2 hour I’d been inside of the bedding burrito trying to stuff all the cheese and lettuce and fluffy goodness into a shell that it could not possibly fit in.

I then put the comforter into the cover, using what some people would refer to as ‘the right way’ and you know what? (of course you do) Instant success.  And with that immediate success came the immediate feeling of failure.  I just did in 3 minutes, after proper analysis and planning, what I could not do in 30 minutes of cramming and prodding and coaxing and.. well, more than a little cursing.

Mmaybe if you had been here I wouldn’t have had such trouble. Of course, maybe if you’d been here, there would have been photos to go along with the story…. hmmmm… maybe I’m glad you weren’t here for that!!!

As I shook the comforter and cover into place (so easy when you do it the right way) I started thinking (you knew it was coming.. admit it!! you were waiting for it!!!) about how sometimes we just try to cram the things we want into place, when what we really need to do is just relax and make sure things line up (sometimes they line up so perfectly if we just let it happen) and let things fit as they should.

I thought maybe there was a lesson on alignment.  On being aware when things go a little sideways, that sometimes all we have to do is find an opening to get everything back on track.  It’s hard for me to find a lesson to give, because things are just rolling so perfectly right now.  But I can say this; sometimes a little re-evaluation of our lives is in order.  Sometimes we need to look at the situation that we’re in to see if there is a better way, to make sure that the life we are living on the outside lines up with the person that we are on the inside. Know that I am always here to look at the reason, the what-ifs, the possibilities.  Lets get out of situations that don’t work (no matter how involved we get and how wrapped up we are in trying to make it fit, how much time we’ve spent ) and look for what’s right instead of what is.   The things that go together (like you and me!) will line up when they are supposed to… if we let them.  (Just let them!)  We just need to make sure we’re facing the right direction.  The same direction as meant to be.

So the comforter and cover and I have all made friends, and we will sleep very snugly and soundly tonight and think of you, and hope that you enjoyed this story a whole lot more than I enjoyed living it!!!!  Let’s go to bed.

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I was walking through WalMart yesterday… actually I was shopping… I don’t do a whole lot of strolling around WalMart just to kill time, waiting for excitement to show up. But occasionally that does happen.

Anyway, I was shopping in the big box yesterday and a couple of punk kids passed by me in the aisle, kinda staring all weird-like at me. I thought at first that maybe my fly was open, but that’s really not the direction they were looking. It was more of an eye-contact thing than a fly-contact thing. (wow, 2 distractions in the first paragraph; we may never get this post done). I’m used to being scary to little kids (it’s the long hair, beard and bad attitude thing), but punk kids usually don’t pose much of a problem for me. As they walked by I found the reason for the stare, when one of the dudes said to the other…

“I thought that was Keith Urban”.

I may be extremely hard to live with for a while (harder than normal), cuz I think my ego grew 3 sizes that day. And you didn’t think it could get any bigger… you’re so silly.

You remember the training I went to a couple of weeks ago? From the last post… oh, did I mention the lunches? Well, they really went out of their way to provide a tasty mid-day treat. It was pretty awesome. I think every conference/training that I go to should have lunches like that one. I need a snack. brb.

Anyhooo… I was looking through some of my notes from that training and found a topic that just really seems to fit the way my day/mood has gone today. One key phrase that I picked up in the training was “you can only be as successful as your business partner will let you”.

In the project management world, this means that no matter how good you are at your job, how wonderful you run a project, how clean your programming is… if the business that you are working with doesn’t want you to succeed, doesn’t let you succeed or doesn’t know how to succeed, you never will.

Always looking for connections, it occurred to me how that applies so much in our everyday life (for those people who may have an everyday life. My life just happens to be awesome!!) Almost everything that we are, that we become, is from our own programming, from how good we are at bringing about the things we want, about being prepared for those spectacular moments when they come along. But we are all subject to surrounding influence (peer pressure, erratic room temperature, etc) and the people that we hang out with, the company we keep, can go a long way in how successful we are.

One trick in the business world is to hang out with people who are more successful than you are. If you are the most successful person in your group, well I say good for you for one thing. But maybe you need to find someone who is at least as good as you, if not better. The same goes for happiness. If you’re surrounded by funhaters, life is eventually going to seem like a constant lousy Monday for you.

But if you look for good people and happiness, and hang out with those who love life, who dance and sing, who love puppy breath and who laugh when they spill something, life might just seem more like a fun, lazy (or exciting I suppose) Sunday morning. Full of things that feel good, things that make you happy, things you want.

That’s what I’ve done. And my life has never been better. You know when it’s been this good? Never! (I just told you that… try to pay attention)

So how do you go about finding happier, and being with happier people, and therefore becoming a happier you? (maybe there’s a Happier Dee – oh I don’t know if I would survive that one) It all starts with a decision. For me, the process started when I decided that I was not going to be miserable anymore. I was going to find my bliss, my center, a reason for getting out of bed in the morning (cuz I knew I couldn’t keep going on auto-pilot). You know what? I found it!

A big part of that happiness was finding you. You (yes, you!) keep coming back and making me feel worthwhile and alive and happy. My muse, my distraction, call it what you will, being able to talk to you and be with you here is part of what makes my life awesome instead of everyday. You saved Me.

Most people never make it past the first step. The first step is to decide that you want to be happy, that you deserve to be happy (cuz you are wonderful and beautiful and awesome!), that you can and will be happy. Maybe you don’t have it all worked out yet… well just let me go first and you can be happy with me until you’re ready to step out on your own a little more. And maybe I can save you right back!

Take my hand and let’s be a success story – let’s find happy. (Happily ever after, since it’s a story!) Bookmark this site (you know you want to) and know that This is a happy place, a refuge, a soft place to fall (or at least a place where you won’t get rugburns if you do). If there’s something we don’t want, or maybe we just think it’s too soon, don’t be afraid to say no. But let’s certainly not be afraid to say yes when the time is right and happiness comes our way! Let’s stay away from the funhaters, and look for things that are beautiful, that are fun, and that let us be who we are.

Cuz I really like who we are.

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