What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

(WARNING: Pity party included. And PAINFULLY long.)

Well, here’s the scoop on my Internet woes. After much hurrah and bitching and wrangling with idiots, I FINALLY got someone out here to deal with my Internet connection who had brains in his head instead of mush (like the morons that sent him out here). The sad diagnosis: Sometime during the past year or two, workmen went down the cable line and turned down the signal to meet new regulations. Wonderful I suppose, if you live within a stone’s throw from the road. Not so grand if you’re a hillbilly, folks whom normally build their houses a goodly distance from the road for the love of privacy. If I keep the modem and the router in the front living room of the other end of this unusually long house, it works grand. But when in the opposite end (MY end), by the time the signal reaches the splitter, the signal is already at 12, sometimes 13 – maximum reading should never be any higher than 12, according the intelligent technician). By the time it goes through the router, the signal is knocked down to around 9 – hence it rarely works right, if at all.

My dilemma is that now, to use the Internet, I must sit in an uncomfortable chair in the midst of the rest of my family, whom circumstances should prove I dearly LOVE, it’s just that my sanity cannot tolerate only so much time around them before I turn utterly mad like the rest of them.

Blogging and browsing blogs was once a very relaxing pastime, something I did when I first get up while drinking coffee, something I did before retiring – it helped me gear up or unwind, whatever the need of the moment. Since I can no longer do that in a comfortable atmosphere, it has lost its appeal, at least temporarily.

As for blogging, or even taking “surf” breaks at my desk on occasion, that’s out these days. What few moments allow for momentary breaks, all any of us want to do is get AWAY from those computers. Another massive layoff stripped us of our desperately needed manpower and we are once again floundering with not enough people to get the job done, which equals overtime, which, though financially helpful, cuts into the overwhelming responsibilities that await OUTSIDE the office WHAT? We have LIVES to live OUTSIDE of the office?! Imagine that! The illustrious Corporate American monster makes no allowances for the reality that its slaves are mere mortal humans.

As if that weren’t enough, employees in our department, in addition to being expected to do the same amount of work with 2 less people, are also expected to learn the effective use of new web software – a need we all sorely recognize, it’s just that some of us are having trouble figuring out where to fit it IN to schedules already bloated with too many responsibilities at home, and even MORE demands upon time and energy at work. Our trainer suggests we use every spare moment to learn, including lunch breaks. Granted, I don’t need food, but due to the newest demands upon our time, one must take every spare moment to do things normally done at home…sit down and pay bills, revise budgets, get groceries, blah blah blah. If you’re single, you could likely manage. But most of us aren’t single. And of those of us who aren’t, all of those (except ME) have spouses at home to help with household responsibilities. All I have at home is an elderly, disabled parent and a grandson to raise, with social and behavioral problems (that I didn’t create, but that I’m expected to somehow repair…with NO ASSISTANCE from anywhere, financial or otherwise). Suggestions anyone?! I’m open for ideas!!!! Oh, lest I forget, a farm and old house to somehow keep up (and keep REPAIRED), with no time to fix my own problems nor money to pay someone else to fix them. A 3’ wide oak is still lying across a portion of the pasture fence. Fortunately, due to the massive size of both the trunk and its branches, the horses can’t get out, which is a good thing, since I have no means to do anything about it. Another tree needs to be cut before it falls on the barn. One of the 2 toilets is leaking if we try to use it. The washer has lost a bearing and the spin dry cycle no longer works. The living room walls have desperately needed spackling and painting for over 3 years, the floor, refinishing, but alas, that requires time and money too. The basement doorknob is off – the door is barricaded from would-be intruders with furniture. I don’t know how much longer the back door is going to hold up. We need a new floor in the kitchen, and the cabinets need to be painted, doors repaired. I can no longer afford to take medication to make all these ‘issues’ seem less important, legal or otherwise. I could get rid of the horses, which would get rid of SOME concerns and ease the financial demands, but brushing them, petting them, grazing them, and the weekend trail rides in the woods are of the few things left in my life that brings my tattered psyche any comfort or relief from the stresses and demands that offer nothing in return but more stress and demands. At least the horses GIVE BACK for the sacrifices made to own them. That’s far more than can be said for most anything else that requires my time and dwindling energies. My horses, my pets, my cameras and my art – without them (even though no one wants to BUY the art), I’d surely be a babbling idiot by now. My mother would be suffering abuses in a nursing home and my grandson would be in foster care or a homeless shelter, if not in the penal system already.

With a new technologically wonderful setup that I cannot yet afford to purchase and install, I will be able to sit comfortably in my own end of the house, and once again surf the web in freedom and bliss. But that’s approximately $150 from now, and here of late, I’m struggling financially beyond description, for many legitimate reasons that no one really cares to hear. Suffice it to say that I do not see a clear $150 anywhere in my near future, regardless of how deeply I peer into my crystal ball, hence my appearances here in beloved Mindsay land will be rare indeed. I can only hope that there will be a few die-hard friends and fans to welcome me back, should I by some miracle find a resolution to this problem sometime within the next year.

To sum it all up, being the ‘alpha mare’ is not anything anyone would want to aspire to be. Nonetheless, I would not have had such overwhelming responsibilities thrust upon me if I were not equal to the challenge. (Who made THAT decision, anyway??!!!!). Now that I have effectively spewed out the indigestible foulness besetting my troubled soul, I feel a small sense of relief, though I have surely not brightened the life of anyone reading this (hey, you were warned!).

I will now get up, go to the other end of the house so I can post this on my abandoned blog. Hopefully, readers will stroke my pitiful self and say “poor you” (which of course is the sole reason for any pity party) and tell me I am completely justified in my whinings and self-pity. I will then feel guilty for having attempted such a base draw of energy from my beloved friends, and realize this is not the person I want to be and this is not the life I want my life to be. I will clean myself up, go outside, saddle the horses and escape to the great outdoors, where I will renew my soul and draw energy from the abundant life around me. I will return, eat a good meal of leftovers, retreat to my end of the house and count my many BLESSINGS instead of curses (and surely, EVERYone’s lives consist of an ample supply of BOTH) and find some way within myself to find a new perspective, a new way of looking at my circumstances that makes it all seem more acceptable and bearable. I will determine to look on the bright side and not the dark side. I may work on a painting while contemplating these things. And somehow, by the end of this day, will realize that life isn’t really so bad, is in fact, actually quite good, in spite of its many imperfections. And that I am truly greatly blessed. And my family is greatly blessed. With life, health (generally speaking), shelter (however imperfect and unattractive), food and more than one healthy means of emotional escape (the kind that does not defile the body or mind). Which is far more than many others have. In fact, when I change the course of my thinking, I really am OVERWHELMED with things to be grateful for.

Dang, would you look at that! I started out wallowing in a cloud of self-pity, and ended up resolving to recognize the fact that it really is not so bad. Is that what the Bible referred to as “encouraging thyself?” This is today…let us all rejoice and be glad in it. No matter how beset any of us may be with problems and seemingly insurmountable troubles, SOMEthing good can be found it all, if we look hard enough. And it is the good and the beauty we must focus on, if we are to survive the more unpleasant aspects of life…if we have any hope of CHANGING the more unpleasant aspects of life.

(Now that all that is said and done, check out my latest photo gallery from my first 'official' professional photography gig at a horse show in Clemson last weekend.)