I had a quiet weekend. It was good to not have to be working all the time. Still, I think I would rather have been working.

I love my fiance very much. We've been engaged over three years. And he is a good, honorable and kind man that is intelligent and caring. He is good.

But he has two concerns that concern me. One is my kids. He makes no secret that he thinks he doesn't have the patience to deal with the tantrums and demands that he recognizes as a part of every child's life. He understands the love that parents feel, but he doesn't feel he has the patience that children demand. I think he has more patience than almost any other human I've met, but he doesn't think the same.

The other is my weight. He has told me he has no intention of marrying a large lady, so he keeps waiting for me to lose this weight that I've carried all my life. He tells me that I'd feel better if I lost weight. I think he has it backwards. I'd lose weight if I felt better.

I guess there's one other concern: he doesn't understand my fibromyalgia. I don't think he realizes how debilitating--nor how real--this is. It's frustrating. No one ever seems to understand this diagnosis.

The weight and the fibro are not exclusively misunderstood by him. Others misunderstand it, too. It's frustrating.

I read something in the comic strip today that reminded me: it's all in your perspective. I don't remember which strip it was, and I apologize to the writer for not remembering the name of the strip or the writer so I can give credit, but that writer was very observant.

It opens with two men in a jail cell, and one gentleman remarks to the other, "They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." In the next scene, he offers, "Well, let me give you a tip." He ends by reporting, "In legal terms, it's called 'forgery.'"

I guess one man's garbage is another man's treasure, and there's more than one way to play the game. It all comes down to knowing that if you don't like the way your world looks, change the way you look at it. Think out of the box and come full circle to a new idea from the same basic thought.

We may all put our pants on one leg at a time, but maybe we should think about which leg we put forward first. At some time, maybe it will make a difference to change your routine just a bit. I'll have to try it one day. Soon.

Spring has sprung. I know the green grass and beautiful leaves will come soon, and I want it now. It also makes me always wonder about whether is any astrological significance in a pattern that emerges in my sons and their father and grandfather.

I used to say we had the seasons covered. I have a son born on the first day of winter in the year of his birth, which was not December 21, so I think there must be a reason he waited for that day. My younger son was born on the first day of summer, June 21. So they were my winter baby and my summer baby. Their father's birthday is the first day of spring. Their grandfather's birthday is the first day of fall. All of them significant on their own, but I'm wondering whether there could be greater significance in this pattern.

I did ask one lady that was into astrology once if there was any significance, and she said there wasn't. But I wanted it to be more, so I keep wondering, not accepting her answer. It's as if even when I know the facts, I still can't seem to accept something that would logically indicate something that doesn't really exist.

That's what happened at work yesterday, too. I was being told something by inexperienced workers that I just couldn't accept--though they were using logic and I had even used that logic at one time, albeit wrongly. Today, the day began the same way. That same logic was being expounded until finally I gave in and asked for their department manager to redraft the current policy to reflect their current practice. I was ready to cry because of all the grief I had taken as I somehow learned to do things differently than that logic had told me so many years before, and now as I tried to accept that change happens, I felt as if I had wasted all these years of not doing things this logical way. Then I went to lunch and tried to walk it all off--and when I came back, still all worked up, suddenly I had a visitor at my desk come and tell me that the policy was not being re-written and that I had been correct to do it the way the policy demanded. And only by my asking for the revised copy did the manager even know what these inexperienced people were trying to achieve. I felt so relieved--and then I figured I really wasn't all that great because I finally gave in to something that I knew was not right, though something was always telling me not to accept the reality that was being formed.

And, so, I wonder: Is there a significance to this pattern of births that ends with my younger son, a pattern that could only be completed by my two boys, their father and their grandfather. It seems significant to me that my daughter has no part of the pattern, and the only significance I have is that I enabled the completion of this pattern. But why that pattern was formed is something I don't know...but want to believe must be there, though someone has told me otherwise.

I also wonder: should I merely accept the inevitable or keep struggling against the mainstream and hold my head hight? I think the latter is better, but the ealier is easier.

Today my experience at my job was tested every time I turned around. It was very frustrating, and I wanted to scream. I came as close as I ever have to slamming doors and screaming loud and long. As it was, I did lodge a complaint to management.

Years ago, when I first came to this company, I was a polite, unobtrusive person. Now, I try to be polite, but I don't budge when I know that I'm following what experience has taught me is the correct way to do things. Newer people that don't have experience are fighting against my decisions, and it is frustrating. I am trying to be patient and taking things one thing at a time--but apparently other people don't have the same degree of patience. They went ahead and made decisions without having all the facts--so now I am the one that gets to communicate these poor decisions to our customers. Luckily, I also have experience at giving bad news in a positive manner. That's why they hired me! And I'm getting more experience every day!

I guess that's why this blog is good. I voice all the frustrations that I'm not allowed during teh day. When your work is addressing complaints and turning them into something positive, sometimes you just have to vent.

This has been a long weekend. I worked very late Friday night, then came home and was too tired to do much of anything. Normally, I would have headed down to my boyfriend's since it was a weekend that I didn't have to work, but I wanted to just be home and feel like I was taking time to be me, the me that I like to be on a weekend.

I would normally have wanted to read all weekend, but I couldn't. I hate the way my house looks, so I spent Satruday cleaning. And when I was done, I still hated the way it looks. But I think it's because everything I own was either given to me or purchased at a thrift store or garage sale. None of it really looks like the home I'd love to have. And the house itself needs help. The carpet is at least sixteen years old and is filthy, stinky and just plain awful. I've wanted it replaced forever, but I know that if I had asked me landlord when he was alive, he would have told me it was my responsibility to pay for the new one because I and my kids destroyed the old one as we lived here for the past sixteen years. Now that he died a couple months ago, I don't want to complain to my grieving landlady. The doors are falling off the kitchen cupboards. When they put in a new furnace three years ago, they didn't put in the walls around all the ductwork, so you see the bare ducts and the laths in the wall behind it. The bathroom ceiling needs to be taped and sanded, and painted. The kitchen ceiling has tiles that are bulging. I just hate the way it looks, even after I clean. I can't afford anything else, but this is not good.

But I did clean and tried to make it better. Then today I woke up with a major headache and exhausted. Fibro is an awful thing. I mentioned to my boyfriend that I was not looking forward to work, though, and he pretty much told me that I was lying. I work hard at my job, and if I have to work long hours to do a good job, he just says that either I am greedy for the overtime or I'm just slow. I don't know why it gets me so angry when he says these things, but I know that the reason I stay is because the work needs to get done and no one else will do it if I don't do it.

And I also get angry that I don't tell him I'm angry with him. I just kind of change the subject or tell him that I have to do the work, but I don't ever really say I'm angry. It's like when we had a coversation about being late--he had just heard that some people are late because they had too much to do to keep on schedule. He said he just assumed people were late because they were lazy. I couldn't believe that. Lazy people would have no excuse for being late, but when people are late, to me, it means that they had a lot to do and didn't schedule well--but it never occurred to me that people are late because they are lazy. And when I got a bit worked up about it, he just shook his head and said he didn't mean anything by it. I guess it does me no good to get angry, but it doesn't do much good not to get angry. So which is better?

All I know is that I do work as hard as I can, and this one man surely just doesn't understand.