ABSILVER's World

Patience is my mantra for the Pandemic! My cousin, Sherri Bassner, wrote in her blog  about letting go and the challenges we all face when we are sitting at home and have limited outlets to be energized and activities to distract us.  She writes much more clearly than I about the challenges of a brain that is always on and looking at issues and subjects and generating new ideas where the major objective right now is to have the patience to make it through the summer. I share her challenge of a brain that doesn't want to slow down and keeps throwing out ideas.  Would anyone really stop at a bakery to take cookies conveniently packaged to take home and bake so they have the best cookies hot out of their own oven?  Yes, I know you can buy cookie dough in the grocery store.  Frank and I spent the month of April and May perfecting cookie recipes including chocolate chip, oatmeal, sugar, and molasses cookies.  There must be something more valuable to come from this other

I don't know how to explain it, and maybe won't post it anyway.  But, I hit a wall this morning.. don't think it is a major one but maybe a few feet high. Maybe, of value is to say I need to explore my mind more than anything at these times.  It comes in waves, and this morning one wave is that I have had a terrible runny nose.  My first inclination, in normal times, would be this is allergy season and this is normal for me.  Go find a Claritin and just move past it.  But, these aren't normal times so first I worry as yesterday was the first outing in a while and hope that I didn't pick "anything" up even though everything I have read runny nose is not normally a Coronavirus symptom.  Fast forward, I took a Claritin and in minutes the drip seemed to slow and so assume good sign it is an allergy.  When I think of the virus, and getting really sick.  My fear is being alone in a hospital.  I have spent enough time in a hospital in the last few months

So, I sit here in the middle of another rainy morning in east Texas.   This week we went from sunny warm days to cooler evenings to now another storm of heavy rain and thunder. The last few days have been challenging even though the weather was lovely.  I sat here perplexed and honestly not in a very good mood.  Work was ok.  We had a nice dinner of chicken thighs, potatoes, and veggies.  I even made Weight Watcher oatmeal cookies and used butterscotch chips instead of chocolate chips and was quite pleased with the results.  But, I couldn't shake this feeling of uncertainty and stress of life as we know it.  It is day 53 of being sheltered in place, and I am having a harder time as of late.   I think it is a combination of challenges, but at the heart of my angst is I feel a bit out of control of my life.  OK, I feel a great deal of lack of control as decisions are being made for me that I have little input on.  Want to go out to eat?  can't safely.

So, I sit here this morning. It is Friday. Normal Fridays come with excitement as the work week ends and you wonder what the weekend holds. Will we do something adventurous like go visit Tyler? We haven’t explored Shreveport, so maybe that would be an adventure or cook and have the family over for dinner. But, this is not a normal Friday, and this week has been anything but normal for me. It seems the days start ok, I go for my “power” walk and seem to have a clear handle on the day ahead. Then I sneak off to my office and try to focus and some of the days seem to wander back into a funk. I have social media content to write for the iSOA team, with some exciting opportunities in the API Management and Gateway arena. There is a Twitter marketing class I started but for the life of me have not re-engaged and really need to. The next class in the series is LinkedIn and I really want to take that class, but I think there is room to learn on Twitter so I need to back to it. This mo

My daily conversations with my parents always include two comments.   One, they feel like prisoners in their own home not being able to go anywhere, even though they were mostly housebound after their stint in the hospital except for doctors’ appointments.   Second, the conversation would come around to they have never seen anything like this in their lives.   Even WWII rationing was not as bad as people could at least go out, and as my Dad said there was also a black market for goods if you had the money.   One difference is we have news and information at our fingertips whenever and wherever we want it.  Want to know if the Wuhan infection rates are up or down? Google it.   If you want to know how New York is fairing?   Google it.   Want to understand what the right way to wash your hands is? Google it.   It also means we are getting "news" real and fake from every outlet.   People on Facebook need to be warry of news on which drugs are working and other as

So, I woke up this morning, wondering why today is different. As I sit here, there is a funk over me today.     These moods, are rare, but they tend to start with feeling  a little down or uncertain of the day ahead.   There are advantages to being 55.   I know these moods are inside my head and I just need to find the right music, a walk in the park, or maybe write in my blog to discover what is the cause and I can usually find a resolution and get back to a happier place and content mind. Nobody really can help me in these moments.   Talking about it won't help because honestly until I know what is pulling me down what can others do to help. Getting inside my head is not easy and subjecting others, even Frank, to what is not a well thought out discovery process is not fair to them or often helpful. I slept well last night, after severe rainstorms and a Tornado warning yesterday.  Our new home is on a hill, and there are French drains that direct the water unde

It is said by many, that tragedies and challenges matter more as they get closer.   Certainly, nobody with a heart can be taking this Corona virus less than serious, but it is also getting closer to me personally.   A few friends have caught the virus and some in my extended world have passed away.   As we all are, or should be, at home dealing with what is challenging and getting sadder situation every day, I turn to music to help me out. It isn’t necessarily to me out of feeling sad or out of a funk I may be in.   Music helps me search inside my heart and mind to understand what, why and how a time or event is making me sad and many times the lyrics help me turn the corner. There are several songs I go to, and I thought maybe they would cheer up others.   So, put together a list which started out to be a top 10 and, and I started out thinking about a top 10 and ended up at 14. Here it is.. the song titles and a link to a video on YouTube.   I am not including the artis