Loose Ends and Stuff

A little over a month ago I posted an article about squash bugs and how the little bugs were taking over my garden and decimating my squash crop. It is with great sadness and frustration that I tell you the score is 45-0 and the squash bugs win. It's enough to make me want to go back to California where the bugs have better sense and either give up or succumb to WMD. Normally I would be complaining about having too much squash and I have only received a meal or two out of my garden.

Now if I am going to be fair about this I need to also say that finding myself gainfully employed meant I had a sudden deficit in my available time to be out there picking the blasted things off my plants. I don't think it would have mattered. They seem to have an amazing ability to reproduce themselves and apparently made whoopie in every shelter and on every curbit leaf in my garden. Not only did they take out my squash but my normally prolific lemon cucumbers were annihilated as well (the curbit family includes cucumbers and squash).

I cannot let the story end here in good conscience though. In an amazing turn of events I seem to have hit the right combination of tender loving care and abject neglect for my green beans to flourish. I only have a few plants but they are producing nicely. I am seriously amazed that God has provided any fruit for my pitiful labors.

Another casualty of my new found employment are my delusions of being invincible. Work is humbling me and while that's good for me I don't much care for it. It is difficult for me to find the balance between striving for perfection in a task and being satisfied when I do most things acceptably and only need to remediation on a few. I am not talking about the laziness I fight. I mean that the job is new to me and I can't possibly know everything I need to know to make perfect decisions. I need both correction and guidance. So, when I am corrected I shouldn't feel like I am moronic and of no use or value to my employer- but that's exactly how I feel.

I don't think it is my pride that is being hurt, although I am willing to be wrong about that assessment. Instead, I think what I experience is a left over response from having been raised in an environment that was not only abusive but hyper-critical as well. The feeling of worthlessness for having made a mistake in my job isn't shame or guilt as I fully understand that it is impossible to know it all in a few short weeks. I think it is a patterned fear response. This revelation isn't an excuse for that behavior. It reminds me that I am not as sanctified as I think I am thereby humbling me, which is why I am so willing to be wrong about it being a pride issue. Fear, pride or a mixture of both, I only know that I need to remember this in order to better assist the folks I counsel to identify what is driving their behavior and sinful responses.

And lastly, yes I watched Governor Sarah Palin give her speech and I watched Senator John McCain give his. I am trying to let my opinions marinate and settle for a bit. Gut reaction? I like Sarah Palin and McCain is a better choice than Obama. However, both their speeches tugged at my heart and hit me in places that elicit emotional responses from me. I want to think about this for a bit. I don't want to be a victim of advertising and packaging.