Winter in Georgia ~

So it's funny. Growing up in Florida winters were warm. Holidays were spent in short sleeves and bluejeans and sometimes shorts. In January or February it might get down below freezing, so panic would set and Dad would teach us how to drip the faucets saluted and freeze.

I live in Georgia now. Cold temperatures consistently happen, but they're not as cold as they are up north. This past winter I noticed where my daughter's low temperature was going to be 2°. I asked my wife to go out and take her picture outside into degree weather while she was up there; she laughed at me and said she wasn't going to go outside for anything like that!

But I find myself in Georgia enjoying the temperatures in the mid 40s during the daytime.

It's kind of nice! It's cool, but as long as you stay in the sun it feels decent with the cool air moving around you. Granted, I'm not out there when the windchill is making it less than in the mid 40s, but still.

To that point that I spent the afternoon sitting on my front porch in the afternoon sun enjoying the mid 40 temperatures in the sunshine.

I don't know if that's experience, if it's age, if it's nostalgia, or if it's just wanting to be outside and have something different than the inside view that I've had for the past week or so.

But it feels good to sit outside and soak in some raise in the mid-40s. A lot different that it feels when I'm at the beach, but it still feels good.

Weekends and shift work ~

As an air traffic control specialist I worked shift work for many years. I had weird days off and worked different shifts on my workdays. For example, for several years I had Tuesday Wednesday days off. I would work Thursday evening, Friday evening, Saturday either a dayshift or an earlier evening shift, an early dayshift on Sunday, and then in early dayshift on Monday or sometimes a mid-shift on Sunday night into Monday morning. When I got a little bit of seniority I got to move to Monday Tuesday days off, and then as I got older I got Sunday Monday days off. Because I worked shift work it always bothered me when staff people with straight days with weekends off walk around laughing that it was Friday and they were about to have a nice weekend. If it was a holiday weekend they were to have a nice three day weekend while I work almost every holiday. I did get extra pay for working the holiday but I did not get very many holidays off for many years.

At one point I took a staff job so that I can have weekends off with my family of-small children I made a point to not celebrate the weekends that way. Because I understood how it grated on the nerves of the people working shifts and just starting their week on a Friday evening shift because they just came off their weekend of Wednesday Thursday days off.

Now that I'm older and much deeper into my career I'm in a position where I have straight days and weekends off. I'm still available to do things as needed at night or on weekends, but that does not happen very often.

I still make a point of not talking about "happy weekend" or "have a good weekend" and/or "thank God it's Friday" or any of those things. Because I know that so many people that work shift work either can't really bugs them when they have to work and other people are celebrating getting their time off.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy my time off. I love being at home with my wife. And being able to go and do things. It's odd now because every time I go to do things there's lots of other people doing those things also. One of the benefits of the shiftwork that I worked was being able to have my car worked on or have someone come in and repair something at the house and I didn't have to take leave to do it. I just did it on my day off.

I guess I'm trying to say that I'm sensitive to what those around me are doing and what they are working. I like to ask questions and find out if that nurse is just coming off a 3 12 hour shifts a day rotation. That's why the nurse gets four days off, because there were caring for people 12 hours in a day. Often times 12 hours in the night.

I suggest trying not to glory about a benefit people with "normal" schedules tend to take for granted and don't complain about so many other people trying to do what you're doing.

Enjoy!

Over the Rainbow ~

Last night I was eating dinner with my wife at our table in our kitchen. I had some music playing on our streaming device. The song "Over the rainbow" came on. And I cried.

"Over the rainbow" is one of my favorite songs that I try *not* to listen to. Because almost every time I listen to that song I cry. Sometimes just a couple tears. Sometimes deep heaving sobs. Often somewhere in between those two extremes. But the song makes me cry.

Even thinking about it makes my eyes start to water up. I don't know if it's Pavlovian reaction now. I think it has something to do with the words and the message.

For a while I kept a dish of lemon drops on my desk at work. They never melted away.

And I often wonder why, oh why can't I do certain things.

You can listen to the song at https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Ooxpz0Eqk&feature=share

Enjoy!