Be Careful What You Wish For. Seriously.

Back in November, I was on call for my agency. This means I carry the agency cell phone and must field all calls that come in after hours and on weekends.  Maybe I should say especially weekends, since weekends are after hours and that is when the bulk of the calls come in. I am supposed to be there for emergencies, but many of the calls are anything but. “So-an-so is late. She’s always late. I’m sure she’ll be in eventually, be we are sick of it and want you to know.”

So. Going into my on-call rotation, I made an affirmation that no one would call out. So what happened on Friday night? Two - count them, two - no-call, no-shows. And then on Saturday morning, all heck broke loose and there were multiple call-outs. Some found their own coverage, some simply refused to go in, and one (bless her!) said she’d suck it up and go in if I couldn’t find anyone (and I couldn’t and she did). It’s the no-call, no-shows, that make me pretty unpopular in the moment, because I may have to hold a staff for an hour or a whole extra shift if I can’t find anyone else to cover.

I ended up having to go in and cover an overnight shift on Saturday night. Fortunately, it was a sleep shift. I didn’t sleep the whole night, but I slept as well as could be expected. Afterward, I had some errands to run, so I stayed in town. I went to a cafe for a pastry and chai. While relaxing in the cafe and sipping my chai, I played on Facebook on my phone.

A Facebook friend asked a question: “What would you rather have: a new kitchen, a new smartphone, or a new HDTV?” I posted, “I want a new smartphone, preferably one with a longer battery life.” Within minutes, the agency cellphone rang and I answered immediately. In retrospect, I should have answered the call outside, even if it meant having to call the person back. It was a staff calling out for a shift in a few hours, and I grabbed everything off the coffee shop table and left the building so I could talk in privacy (the cafe was busy).

As soon as I got outside, a fire truck screamed by. So much for quiet. I still had trouble hearing the caller. I made it to my car, still talking: it’s really short notice, who do you think will cover, etc. As I got into my car and ended the call, I started searching for my own cellphone. Is it in my pockets? My purse? My car? The cafe? It must be in the cafe. Or my pockets. I patted the same pockets multiple times.  I went back to the table where I’d been sitting. Nothing there. I asked the lady who had been sitting across the table from me if she had seen my cellphone. She looked at me as if I were crazy and said I was holding it. Um, no, not this phone, my phone, the one I had just been surfing Facebook on before I got a call on the agency phone. She hadn’t seen it. Or said she hadn’t. I asked the store personnel. No go. I looked in the trash near the door (I really must have looked crazy), the parking lot, my car, the cafe again (I left the agency cell number in case my phone turned up). I tried calling my phone from the agency phone. I know the ringer was on, but I didn’t hear it ringing, not in the cafe, not in my car, not between the cafe and my car.

Finally, I went to my car and made some calls to staff to try to cover the shift (no one picked up, so I left voicemails), then drove across the street to the cellphone store (okay, it was across the street about a quarter of a mile away). The guy in the cellphone store deactivated my phone and checked to see if I qualified for an upgrade. To my surprise, I did. He did try to locate my previous phone, but it showed as being shut off. I know it was on when I took the agency call. I also know it had about 50% charge. If I had dropped my phone in the back seat of my messy car, it surely would have shown up. I must assume a cafe customer took the phone and turned it off so it wouldn’t be found.

So, my missing phone was deactivated and the guy in the store said that I should not erase the phone remotely. He said that doing so would make it so whomever picked it up would be able to use it just like a new phone (a new phone whose battery lasts about 4 hours). I’m sure there are ways to reactivate a deactivated phone, but the guy reassured me that my data was safe. I hoped so. I really hoped so.

I was eligible for an upgrade. Not a great upgrade, since I hadn’t had the missing phone for long (a year, but I didn’t think I was anywhere close to being eligible for an upgrade), but since I really needed a new phone right now, I took what was offered. The new iPhone 6 sounded good, but wasn’t in stock. It might take about three weeks to get them in. I had been considering going with something that runs on Android ever since I purchased a Nexus 7 tablet over the winter. They has Samsungs in stock, including the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, which the guy in the store said has a good camera. I found out later that this phone is the latest and greatest and is the iPhone rival. Cool.

So. Be careful what you wish for. Don’t tell Facebook and the Universe you want a new smartphone unless you are prepared to have your current one stolen so you can get a new one right away.

Experiment #7

I skipped experiment #6 in E-Squared. For now. #6 is about planting beans and making the ones you think about grow faster than ones you neglect. I know all about neglecting plants. Some thrive on it. Some don’t. I’ll get around to doing this eventually, but I do have a Burnt Umber Thumb when it comes to plants. I’m sure it’s all in the attitude and if I am nice to my plants, they will be nice to me. If I weren’t convinced I’d kill them upon sight, they might thrive. And remembering to water them probably wouldn’t hurt, either. (And in my BUT blog, I have shown that I can make tomatoes and garlic sprout from parts of the food that I already have. I just need to experiment to carry this out to growing a full plant.)

And here is where I segue into thinking about cats and how while I can’t keep plants alive, I can keep cats alive for a long time. They scream for food and follow me around, for one thing. If plants did that, I’d probably keep them longer. Or they’d rebel and develop opposable thumbs and open the cats’ food cans and they could oust all the humans and rule the world. And my cat is already plotting to take over the world. I’m sure she’d love minions in the form of sentient plants to assist her.

And then, thinking about cats, I realize cats seem to pick up on intentions. They seem to have a sixth sense and just know when you want them to come to you for food and when you are trying to trick them because you want to take them to the V-E-T. Is there something in your tone or manner that changes? Or do they actually read your thoughts? Maybe they heard the phone call to the vet and can tell time and just know when their appointment is.

Anyway, I digress. Experiment #7 in E-Squared is about losing weight. It’s about intention and telling your food that it will do a body good and not make you fat, that it won’t go immediately past your lips and to your hips. And you give your food three days to do its thing and help you lose weight – all without changing anything about your diet (I know, “diet” is a four-letter word, one to be avoided, but all it really means is what you eat). You can eat anything you want and you won’t gain weight, according to the experiment. In fact, you will lose two pounds. Or, if you don’t need to lose, you will get healthier (or maybe, if you need to gain, you could make that your intention).

So, anyway, the idea is to tell the food that it is healthful and nourishing, even if it isn’t, such as soft serve ice cream or chocolate cake. That it won’t cause weight gain. It’s rather like saying grace before a meal, to bless the food. And you are not supposed to say things like, “I don’t need this” or “oh, gosh, I can feel the pounds adding up just by looking at this cake.” The theory says that food can hear what you say and think and will act accordingly. And the theory says that the food can’t tell when you are joking, so it takes everything you say very seriously. (Take that, Vegetarians – your veggies are sentient, too.)

So I weighed myself at the start of the experiment. I weighed 1.4 pounds below my goal weight, and I have been using SparkPeople to maintain my goal weight. I didn’t particularly want to lose two pounds. I told myself I would be happy to maintain that weight.

I forgot to tell the food I ate that I appreciated it. If forgot to bless it. It’s just not a habit. But neither did I stress over what I was eating and worry about calories or anything else. Which is normal for me. I rarely count calories for my own food, though I do consider them for the foods of the people I support in the group homes I run.

On the morning of day three, I weighed myself again. No change. Since my intention was to see no change in the scale, I must declare the experiment a rousing success. But I have to wonder about the people in the group homes my agency oversees. Why are so many of our clients overweight? Most of them find it perfectly acceptable to eat the foods they like, the extra helping of chocolate cake, and to shun the vegetables they don’t like. I don’t think they are thinking they shouldn’t be eating this food, I think they are thinking they are enjoying this food. It’s the staff telling them they shouldn’t be eating this, but should be eating that. I must wonder – does the food hear that and not distinguish between where the thoughts are coming from? Maybe a better experiment would be to do some sort of blessing of whatever food is eaten in the group homes to see if the clients can lose weight by thoughts alone. To change our approach to the clients and food.

I'm back!

I was on call for a week back in October. I wrote out my manifestations before taking the beeper and cell phone. And I wrote them as if they had already happened, the way you are supposed to with affirmations. "All staff are healthy," I wrote. I had a call-out due to staff injury. And another due to a staff’s family member's illness. I must be careful how I word what I wish for. "Staff are healthy and fit for work. Staff will not call out." I have to be careful about wishing for no calls at all, though, because while some staff call about stupid stuff ("I'm having trouble faxing my time sheet"), some don't call about important things I need to know about (falls, choking).

And then one of the houses I manage was inspected by the local housing authority. This is a yearly inspection and announced well in advance. I mopped up all the standing water in the basement and made sure all the windows had screens. Screens are important to them, for some reason. While the guy was in the house, I thought, "pass, pass, pass," a mantra running constantly in my head as I followed the Mr. Inspector Guy through the house. We were just leaving the bathroom when he backed up and said there was a loose tile (which was off by a fraction of a millimeter), so we failed the inspection for one loose tile. Seriously?

We had a huge state inspection in early November. This wasn’t a surprise, either. We’ve been anticipating (read: dreading) this all year. Life got put on hold. I manifested and affirmed that I would not get picked for inspection. Or that the houses I run would not get picked in their random sample. Except ... In the back of my mind, I did think that if I did get picked, they should pick House B and not House A, because House A had more paperwork problems. House B was picked. It's my fault, I guess, for throwing that possibility out there to the Universe. But we had a few days' notice, and the paperwork was in place, and we did well in the inspection. In fact, the whole agency did well, as all the houses picked passed. This is excellent news, because this is our licensing source. We have been blessed by the State to keep operating for two more years. (Paperwork is huge at my agency. If something isn't documented, it didn't happen. We need to show that stuff happens. We show progress toward goals, and we also we document any bad stuff that happens, such as falls and health concerns.

So anyway, my life was on hold from October until now. My calendar at home is still on October. It is now the middle of January. I haven't read much for pleasure. I haven't read any more in the book on getting better organized. I haven't read any more in E-Squared. I have recently learned that Pam Grout will soon have a new book published: E-Cubed. A must get, for sure. But first, I want to get through E-Squared.

So I’m on call again this weekend. I was just about to write that I have a different attitude about it, that I will not worry about it (though I have found that what I worry about doesn’t happen – for the most part) and that I haven’t had many calls – when the phone rang. All is well … all is well …

Experiment #5

Experiment #5 in E-Squared is about the Force providing accurate and unlimited guidance. All I needed to do was ask for guidance on a yes-no question and expect an unambiguous answer within 48 hours.

Pretty simple, right? Not necessarily.

It took me a day or so to come up with a question. I finally asked in desperation and exasperation if I would ever be organized. It's a question and it has a yes-no answer. Or a maybe ... or  sometimes … answer. It was all I could think of. It would have to do.

About 24 hours later, no books or articles on organizing had fallen into my lap, nor did offers of such books show up in my in-box. Well … nothing besides the usual FlyLady and Martha Stewart emails, and if they were going to magically make me organized, I’d be … well … Martha Stewart by now.

I started looking for books on organizing. The Lord helps those who help themselves, right? So it’s not really cheating … is it? Helping the Force along?

I was looking for a free book. Or a great deal for a book. What I settled on was How to Get Organized without Resorting to Arson, by Liz Franklin. It wasn’t free, and it wasn’t particularly low cost. But it was available for Kindle, so I could purchase it and download it immediately. It turned out to be a wonderful book, as Liz has a great sense of humor and takes into account different personality styles. If an organizing expert were to walk into my workplace today (or any day – today is Saturday, after all) and tell us all how to do things, most of us would be completely lost. Liz shows us how to do things that match our own way of thinking.

I was able to start right away with making some changes. Not too much at once, and only at work (so far). I started on a smaller desk, and couldn’t do the U-shaped surround Liz recommends. I have subsequently changed desks, though, and the new desk is L-shaped, and then there’s a bookshelf unit that pretty much forms the U around me. Now I just need to get things set up the way they need to be to get the paperwork to flow. Getting things in on time is a big challenge for me (and almost everyone else), so I’m looking forward to continuing to organize my space.

And going back to Experiment #4 for a moment: it took a couple more weeks to get totally fed up with my iPhone 4S. I got an email from a major electronics store, offering the iPhone 4C for just $99 and get $50 back. I checked with my carrier and was eligible for an early upgrade. I went to the store to see what kind of deal I really could get. The $99 phone was too good to be true with 6 months to go on my current contract (I know, right?). But since I was eligible for an early upgrade, I could get the phone at full price. But wait – my iPhone 4S had a good trade-in value (they didn’t care about the battery drainage problem, just that there were no scratches and that the buttons worked fine), and the store was still going to give me the $50 back, so I ended up getting the phone for less than $100 (plus tax – ugh!). Of course, after buying a case and screen protector and extra charger, it cost me more than $100, but I would have bought those items anyway.

So … I guess that proves …. something. Perhaps that I can manifest a product out of air.

Experiment #4

Experiment #4 of E-Squared says to request something you want by make and model and expect it in 48 hours. I chose a new iPhone, but I couldn’t decide on a model. For some reason, Apple decided to release two models at once (how could they?). I haven't done the research into which will meet my needs better, and my current contract isn't up until next March. I'm eligible for an upgrade, but I will have to pay full price for a phone unless my carrier decides to offer me a deal I cannot refuse. So far, only Best Buy has sent me offers I have so far refused.

I'm supposed to keep the object of my desire in mind 24/7 until I get it. My full attention. This could cause problems with staying safe while driving or with holding coherent conversations with others. And my mind just wanders.

I was spending time with my mom while making this intention. She had heard that a building had collapse in a small town in New Hampshire and wanted to take a ride to see if she could find it. It was supposed to be right on the main drag, she said.

We took the scenic route. Mom drove, so I kept myself amused by taking photos of the emerging fall foliage and anything else that caught my eye (and deleted most of them, because they were blurry). A sign said, "moose crossing next 3 miles." I said out loud, "okay, moose, I'm ready for you." My mother said, "huh?" I explained that I had my camera out and was ready to photograph a moose crossing the road.

I didn't see any moose on that 3-mile stretch. Nor on the 2-mile stretch that followed. But we still weren’t through our excursion. I remained optimistic I would see a moose.

We reached an intersection in town. Mom was saying, "I'm not sure which way to go”, and I said, "it's right straight ahead." Literally. It was right in front of us. A building with its roof caved in. As we looked at the building from other angles, we could see the whole back end caved in. I hoped no one had been in the building when it collapsed.

Then we drove a bit more and came upon an antiques and junk shop. There were odd statues of animals in front of the shop. One was a moose. Really! I hadn’t specified a live moose in my intention to see a moose.

Later in the day, as I drove home through Vermont, I stopped at a basket store. What did I see hanging on the wall? A wicker moose head. Surreal. And lots of souvenirs with moose on them. So, okay, I saw moose. More than one. None real, but still, I guess they filled the intention.

The iPhone? I still don’t have a new iPhone. But about 4 days after my intention, I discovered that the latest and greatest operating system was ready to be installed onto my phone. After an hour and a half (and I’m told I was lucky it was such a short upgrade), I was a bit disconcerted to see that the look of everything had changed and that I had to relearn how to find and do just about everything. But in a sense, I suppose I have a new phone (though I still have one with a battery that lasts a couple hours some days).

Odd moose statue

Wicker moose head

Moose mug

Collapsed building. I hope no one was hurt!

Experiment #3

Experiment #3 in E-Squared involves wire coat hangers. You have to unbend the coat hangers, and I was reluctant to sacrifice 2 hangers for the sake of science. I was thinking about it all wrong, of course. Instead of thinking of the cost of replacing two coat hangers, I should have been thinking, "I am prosperous and can afford to buy two new coat hangers. In fact, I am rolling in dough and can afford much nicer coat hangers."

It was after midnight when I reshaped the hangers into Ls (okay, they looked more like squared off Cs). I had some fat straws hanging around from somewhere (what? Do you throw stuff out?). I put the straws onto one end of the coat hangers to make handles. I held onto the straws so the hangers could swing freely and tell me my mood. My cat, though, had other ideas. She saw the ends of the coat hangers swinging in midair and thought they were cat toys. So it was late, I was tired, and the cat wanted to play. I soon just went to bed.

I tried again with the wands in the morning. I was supposed to think of something bad or sad, so the wands would swing inward, their ends touching. I thought of something from about 12 years ago that usually still gets me upset. No dice. Both wands swung to the right, then to the left, then settled wide open. Wide open is what they are supposed to do when I am calm and happy and thinking positive thoughts. I thought happy thoughts, and the wands stayed open. I guess I was just in a good mood and nothing was going to get me down. That’s not so bad, really.

I put the wands away for another day. Maybe if I use them on a day I feel anxious, I'll get a different result. Maybe there is a way to use them while meditating, a kind of homemade biofeedback machine. It's worth a shot, anyway.

So … it was a few days later. I awoke early – too early, but that’s what I usually do. Maybe I should manifest a good night’s sleep. I had a headache and a dull, creeping anxiety, nothing major, just a lot of things to remember about work. So I remembered the wands. The left one swung all the way to the left, while the right one took its time, first going left, then all the way to the right. I suppose that means I have nothing to worry about. Or am open to new ideas. Or the wands just like to be all the way open. Or maybe - just maybe - the biofeedback thing works and when I hold the wands I calm my mind enough to make them wide open. It may not be such a crazy thought.

And the being prosperous and rolling in dough thing? Well, I need to be careful what I wish for. Just last week, I was talking with "Linda," a colleague about how she has the best desk in the office, because it is in the back, in the corner. This week, she resigned, so not only will I get her desk, I'll get to run one of the houses she runs in addition to the one house I currently run (and Linda's other house will go to another colleague). With a second house comes a little more salary. (Though in human services, "rolling in dough" is a bit of a stretch."