Category Archives: work

Uncategorized, work

Juggling

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Today’s post is from Barbara in Rivertown

I just made a list of activities for the next several days, and made a copy in case I lose track of it. We are preparing our friend – I’ll call him Will – to move from a 3-bedroom house (with full basement and 2-story studio out back) to a 1-bedroom apartment in downtown Winona. He has Parkinson’s disease which has progressed over the past year, so there is a core group of six friends who are helping with this project, and a son arriving on Saturday.

Having just moved ourselves over a year ago, we’ve at least had practice, and remember (most of) what needs to be done. Of course there are differences, and a few wrinkles, like a bed delivery, in addition to the usual phone connection transfers and truck rental. Since Will is pretty slow moving, there is still a lot of sorting to do before stuff can be packed. And once he’s in, we need to seriously get going on house selling. It feels like we are juggling a lot of balls in the air, and I just hope I don’t drop one.  I used to be able to juggle three balls, wonder if I can still do that.

When have you had a lot to juggle, either figuratively or literally?

Family, Technology, Uncategorized, work

Promises, Promises

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Husband and I are in Minneapolis attending the Association for Play Therapy annual conference.  It is a very well attended conference with typically wonderful workshops. This week we will attend 25 hours of lectures related to all aspects of play therapy, and browse the terrific vendors of  therapeutic toys and supplies.

Today we sat through 6 hours of a lecture that was quite disappointing, and not at all what was represented in the conference prospectus.  The presenter had a very ambitious agenda, and was very knowledgeable,  but wasn’t feeling well, and got off track and was distracted by questions from the audience. There were five objectives listed, and only the first two were addressed by the end of the day.  Husband and I were drawing funny cartoons for each other  by the end of the presentation.

I have higher hopes for tomorrow.  My workshops go from  8:00 am until 6:30pm. Husband gets off easier,  and only goes from Noon until 6:30pm.  I hope we won’t be misled like we were today.

When have you been disappointed by false advertising?

Fifty Words, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Packing

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We are traveling by van for the next 10 days. We are going to a play therapy conference in Minneapolis.  As we can’t bear to let produce spoil, we are taking along our canning equipment, jars, rings, lids, and boxes of ripening tomatoes.  We must be out of our minds.

How do you pack for a trip?

 

History, Media, Nature, News, Science, The Future, Uncategorized, work

Making Predictions

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I was happy to wake up on September 24 and find that the world hadn’t ended as David Meade, biblical numerologist, had predicted. I believe he recalculated after he found things were still the same on the 24th as they were on the 23rd, and predicted another date for our demise  on  October 15th.  The rogue planet Nibiru, violating all physics principles, is predicted to collide with earth and set in motion all sorts of rannygazoo.   We shall have to see what happens. I believe that is the date of  Blevin’s book club.  At least you will all be together.

It isn’t easy to make accurate predictions.  Our world is so random that people search for certainty and cling to the idea that we can make sense of the universe. Consider poor Harold Camping,  the evangelist and radio host who made multiple predictions of the Earth’s end in 2011,  and who finally admitted in 2012 that he was sinful for even trying to make such predictions, falling back on Matthew 24:36 “of that day and hour knoweth no man”.

I am often asked as part of my work to make predictions regarding human behavior.  Psychologists have a myriad of tests and ways of making such predictions, but it is never completely 100% accurate. I know that people who score certain ways on tests of cognition and memory probably have dementia.  I know that people who score in certain ways on tests of emotions and personality probably have certain  mental health diagnoses.  I feel pretty certain predicting that parents with drug and alcohol use disorders  who previously neglected and abused their children will probably do the same thing if they continue to abuse substances.   I can  predict, however, with almost 100%  certainty, that if people are allowed to purchase machine guns, those guns will fired off.  That is probably the easiest thing to predict, and you don’t need an advanced graduate degree to do so.

When have you been able to say “I told you so”?

Art, Baboon Achievers, Food, gardening, Music, work

Music To Cook By

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VS’s story about making pesto reminded me of the pesto fests that Husband and I had this month as we harvested the too large basil crop  in the garden.  Husband took the leaves off the stems, which I find to be the most tedious of chores, and I whirred up the ingredients in the food processor.  We ended up with 54 jars.

Husband has gout in one of his feet, and  he needs to shift his weight from one foot to the next pretty regularly if he has to stand for any length of time.  I figure that he stripped about 110 cups of basil leaves off the stems this year over three pesto making extravaganzas.  That meant a lot of standing at the sink. He said it would be easier for him if he had some music to listen to and shift his weight to as he took care of the basil.  He thought that Celtic music would be good for the purpose.  One evening we tried something by Clannad, but that was too dreamy and new age.  We finally settled on a disc by Danu, a group we heard once at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. He shifted and danced his way through the basil stems, and it wasn’t too tedious for him at all.

I listen to music as I do paper work for my job. I typically choose classical music for work.  We have music on most of the time at our house, and choose music accordingly for what we need to get done.

What music helps you work?

Stories, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Road Trip

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Earlier this week I was supposed to meet three of my fellow State-employed psychologists in Bismarck and drive with them to Jamestown to attend five hours of mandatory training related  to treatment planning at the State Hospital.  Jamestown is about 100 miles east of Bismarck. I know all three of my colleagues pretty well and find them to be very pleasant folk, but I was dreading the trip. It would mean 100 miles to Bismarck, 100 miles to Jamestown, and the 200 mile return trip at the end of the day.

We were to travel in a State car,  which usually turns out to be a cramped and uncomfortable vehicle with limited radio options. Moreover, I would be a passenger, not the driver, and that violates my need for control and speed. (It is not a good idea to speed while driving a State car. One of my colleagues did, going about  90 mph, and  she zipped right past the Governor on  the interstate. The  Governor promptly recorded the license plate number,  and had her tracked down and reprimanded.)

Road trips are a fact of life out here since our towns are so far apart. The scenery between Bismark and Jamestown is notable for nice views of migratory waterfowl in “prairie potholes”,  but not much else.  I suppose that the scenery on road trips isn’t as important as the quality of the conversation in the vehicle. I like my fellow psychologists, but I would rather do a road trip with a more diverse and irreverent  group–our church bell choir, for example, or a group of Baboons. My bell choir is very irreverent, like most church musicians I know.

I drove the 100 miles  to Bismarck early in the morning so I could meet up with my colleagues and we could proceed to Jamestown by 8:00 am.  I was dismayed to learn that the training had been cancelled several days earlier, and no one thought to  tell me. I said more than a few cuss words, threw my purse in a temper fit in the parking lot, and drove 100 miles back home, angered and somewhat relieved.  The training has yet to be rescheduled.

Tell about wonderful, horrible, and/ or eventful road trips from your past (or one you are planning) .

Kids, work

Making Work Interesting

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It has been dull and uninspiring for me at work for a while, and when that happens, I know I can liven things up and get my creative juices going by getting something new in my play therapy room.

The toys in the room get used hard, and after several years, they need to be replaced. I took a candid look at what I had, and decided that the old jail needed to be replaced. I have had it for about 15 years. Jails are important in the play therapy room to help children express anger, feel safer, or gain a sense of control.  Some of my young clients have parents who have been in jail or prison. The new jail arrived today, and it took me 2 hours to get it assembled. It is wonderful! It has surveillance cameras, lots of communication antennas and gates that swing open.  It also comes with little hand cuffs and weapons, The guards, a man and a woman, have nice little smiles, and the prisoner has removable prison garb so he can return to society when his term is finished.

This jail has a command center for the guards.

The cells are furnished with a table, a toilet and sink, and a cot.

There even is a cut out that can be removed to make it look like they made an escape.

I can’t imagine purchasing this for one of my own children, but it suits my professional purposes very well. I can hardly wait to see it used.

 

How do you (or did you) make your work more interesting?

gardening, Kids, Nature, Science, Uncategorized, work

The Right Amount of Stress

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It is hard to know in a drought how much supplemental water for the vegetable garden is too much, and how much is too  little.  We err on the side of overindulgence. Our recent water bill is testimony to our generosity.  I worry that our pole beans, full and tall on their poles, have yet to produce flowers due to our over watering and not allowing them to feel stress.  I worry our peppers are responding the same way, with very few fruits as yet. Here is a photo of the pole beans with potato plants in the foreground.

Babies born to diabetic mothers often have underdeveloped lungs due to  the  glucose-rich uterine environment  which lacks the normal “stress” of less sweet amniotic fluid. Children who have few expectations don’t fare as well as their peers who have expectations.

It has been stressful at my work due to difficulty hiring staff. I can’t believe that the stress is doing me any good.

I think that a  little bit of stress is necessary for all good development, be it for plants or people.  The trick is discerning the right balance.  Oh that we could thrive without stress!

What do you consider the good stress in your life? The not so good stress? How do you find a balance?

Art, Business, Fifty Words, Nature, Stories, work

Work & Fun

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Today we had summer fun at work.  Out on the big patio, all the tools and t-shirts were ready for tie dying so we just wrapped up our shirts and squirted away.  And I got a temporary tattoo (logo for our summer program).  None of this has anything to do with my actual job, but it was fun and made the day go by a little faster.

What activity makes your work go faster?

 

Art, Food, Stories, The Baboon Congress, work

Photos and Pizza

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A little while ago, I got an email from Jacque. She needed a “decent, professional photo” for a guest post she had submitted to a therapy blog.

Now I don’t think of myself as a “people photographer” but I thought that I could do an okay job. I have no studio lights or flash, much less a studio, and Jacque didn’t want a studio photo anyway, so we arranged to meet in her backyard.

I consulted with Steve, the photography expert in our baboon community, and he gave me some tips and suggestions, several of which confirmed things I had learned through photography classes. I made a list, using Steve’s tips and my own ideas:

  • Shoot in burst mode (in order to capture fleeting expressions)
  • Background should be contrasting, dark, and uninteresting
  • Jacque should be far enough away from background so that it is out of focus
  • Subject does not have to smile – she can look thoughtful, serious, intelligent
  • Subject should be in the shade, never the sun
  • Bring a stepstool since I am short and Jacque is not and a portrait pointing up at the face is not very flattering
  • Focus on the EYES
  • Meter the brightest part of the face and then set f/stop and shutter manually so there are not blown out highlights
  • In each new area where I shoot, make the first shot be of a gray card so I can easily get the white balance perfect

When I woke up the morning of our “date,” I was thrilled to see that it was an overcast day. Bright sunshine is the enemy of good outdoor portraits and a cloudy day would make it easier to get a good shot.

When I shot the portraits, I made a few mistakes.There were some stray rays of sunshine (that I hadn’t noticed while shooting)  on her neck in some of them that wrecked an otherwise good picture. I had her too close to the background on some shots, so there were distracting details behind her. But I ended up with enough good shots for her to choose one with which she was happy. And I enjoyed the process, which mostly had to do with how easygoing and nice Jacque is and a little with the realization that I that I could do this.

A week later, Jacque treated me to lunch at Black Sheep Pizza. We ordered the Oyster Mushroom, Smoked Mozzarella, Rosemary & Garlic Pizza and, man, was that good. Even better was a chance to sit and talk. I feel that I had the better part of the deal: I got to shoot pictures of a beautiful person and then enjoy a meal with her.

When have you done a favor for somebody and felt that you benefited more than the person you helped?