Solitude vs. Loneliness

Recently I have had the opportunity to be alone and think – my thoughts wandered to the difference between solitude and loneliness. They are defined as:

Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people. Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think or rest without being disturbed. It may be desired.

sol•i•tude - noun
1. the state of being or living alone; seclusion: to enjoy one's solitude.
2. remoteness from habitations, as of a place; absence of human activity: the solitude of the mountains.

Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person experiences a strong sense of emptiness. Loneliness has also been described as social pain - a psychological mechanism meant to alert an individual of undesired isolation and motivate her/him to seek social connections.

loneliness – derived from
lone•ly – adjective, -lier, -liest
1. affected with, characterized by, or causing a depressing feeling of being alone; lonesome.
2. destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship, support, etc.: a lonely exile.

I believe there is a true, and sometimes deeply felt, distinction between solitude and loneliness. For me, solitude is positive. People seek solitude, I seek solitude. My road has changed. For years I was with someone – and now that is gone. For 16 years I have had my child with me almost every day of his life – and sometimes, many times 24 hours of every day we were together. But now he seeks his independence more and more. My boy was gone for 9 days – the longest he has ever been away from me. And I was alone for much of that time. I am okay being alone and on my own.

I have experienced both loneliness and solitude in my life. Several years ago I had a discussion with a friend about the difference, about what it is like to still be alone (or lonely) even when you are with someone or other people. This is the worst kind of loneliness – to be with other people and still feel complete alone and lonely. What is that?! Years and years ago I would have much rather been with someone than to be alone. I filled my time and space with others – not matter the impact. But now, I can be alone and I fit into the comfort of solitude (admittedly at times I’d prefer to be alone – but that is a tolerance issue, and for another post). I have changed and seen the error in my ways.

More changes are to come. My boy will leave soon and make his own way. I’m certain I will miss him, but there will be times when I will be glad for the quiet house, for the solitude that will welcome me when I come home from the craziness of life. I welcome solitude, embrace solitude. What I am afraid of is – will I know when solitude boarders on loneliness? Will I catch those feelings in time, or will it be too late. And when I no longer want to be alone – will I make the same mistakes I have made in the past??? Only time will tell………….

Where Does the Time Go??

Honestly?! I really thought I was going to get better at keeping up my blog. Ha! So now my first year as a principal is coming to an end (the kids are gone and just paperwork is left) and I feel like it's flown by, like I missed it right while it was happening. So many things have changed in such a short time. What took years to build has crumbled, what took years to raise has pushed away, what took years to discover has changed...........and what I have wanted for years is still missing. So if I make more time, will what is missing be found????

I found this poem:

Where did all my time go,
is there any way to know.
It seems days roll by,
hardly time to say hello.
When I was very young,
everything was slow.
I was just thinking,
that was not long ago.
The sun was up early,
now the shadows are here.
The day when fast,
sleeping time is near.
Can’t we slow this down,
it all seems so fast.
If I don’t make more time,
my life will not last.
Okay, I’m in a hurry,
I really have to run.
I’ll keep this poem short,
so other things get done.
–Bob Mutch
Note: I was in a big hurry to go somewhere, so I wrote this short poem quickly in 15 mins. The poem was written in a silly moment, but if you look deep there is a life message there that I have been thinking about.
How about your life, is it going fast.
When it’s all done, what of it will last.
Are you making time, for eternity.
There you will have, lots of time free.

Marathon Cooking Session

The entire afternoon/evening was spent in the kitchen. Y I MISS YOU!!!! It's just not the same, to marathon cook, without you. Please come back!!!! Here's what was accomplished:
- sloppy joes (4 batches worth) all packaged in small packages and frozen, B loves this stuff and it makes for an easy meal when he wants to cook for himself.
- Fire Station Chicken (2 crockpots worth) two meals packaged for us, one for mom and one for the woman at work that we are taking turns cooking for. This is a new recipe, so hopefully we like it.
- Roasted Chicken Lasagna (4 pans worth) three frozen for us and one for the woman I work this. This is an old favorite and will provide us a lot of meals.
- Chicken Salad (1 batch) with the leftover roasted chicken. B loves this in wrappers for lunch meals. And since we pack 6 lunches a week for him, it will be a nice change from what he's been eating.
- Pork Chop ala Orange (4 batches) I frozen two meals, put one up for mom, we ate one for dinner and there is one for work. This is a new recipe and we both loved it. I think it is all in the gravy. Yummy!
- Blueberry muffins (1 batch) - no brainer here. Everybody loves these. Secret is the lemon.
- Cranberry Orange muffins (2 batches) - some frozen for B's breakfast, some for mom, some for the lady at work. They are good too.
- Thai Chicken Wings (1 batch) - these are marinating and we'll throw them on the grill tomorrow night when we get home from work. There's enough for 2 meals.
- Green Chile and Cheese Corn Bread (2 batches) savory item, new recipe. The jury is still out. I wasn't crazy about them, didn't think they were cooked enough. Second batch is still in the oven and should be different. There will be enough for us, mom and the lady at work.
- Steamed BBQ Pork Buns (1 batch) these are one of Bs favorite. There is enough for us and mom.
- Steamed BBQ Chicken Buns (1 batch) never made with bbq chicken, but I'm sure they will be good. Again, froze them all for quick meals.

Needless to say, I'm beat. Figure I should sleep good - but the problem is my knees, ankle and feet are already complaining. Once the last batch of cornbread is out I can finish the dishes (which there are not many because I do them as I go along). I've got a check book to finish and a few other things to do. I figure I'll flop into bed and hope that morning doesn't come too soon.

Y, are you cooking again??? You never mentioned how the cooking on the road went.

Anyway...we'll be eating good in the coming weeks. And with the hours I keep it really does help to have the base of dinner done. Just get home and while it is warming I can make salad, change my clothes and we eat.

Dreams of sweet and savory things!

Saturday Work....

... and I don't mean at the office. It's fall, my favorite season!!!!! With that comes flannel and fleece, but also the work of getting ready for winter. Today, actually last night, we decided that Saturday we would be productive - we chose chores over the Ren. Festival and the BBQ cook off festival (what were we thinkin'?).

Our day started by pulling on the hoodies and heading outside - chair put away, lawn started, leaves blown, generator tested, garage cleaned, patio stuff put away, boat pulled. Ha, funny story about that - it is windy here so there is a pretty good chop on the lake. B decided he'd drive the boat over so with swim trunks and a hoodie on over he headed (cell phone in pocket for a reason i am uncertain). There are two ramps on this lake. You would think 60 degree weather, with a chop, there would be no one around. WRONG!!! The ramp had a back up of trucks/trailers a mile long. So as B sat on the jet ski, texting, we waited our turn.

Anyway....B still has a few things on his chore list to do. I went to the grocery store. Last night I planned a marathon cooking session and it was time to get the ingredients. Tell me again why I went to Meijer on a Saturday?! Oh yea, I work during the week. lol

So now....my counters and kitchen floor are filled with all the things I need to get cooking. Which is exactly what I plan to do. That will take up the rest of my day, for certain.

So what are you doing today????

What the Heck is Internet TV?

As a parent you read, and hear, all about restricting you child's viewing time of television. And I mean the kind of TV viewing that happens on a TV that still has channels, advertisements, a remote control and the screen is still likely to need dusting. You also are warned that too much computer time causes X and too much video game playing causes Y. yada, yada, yada....

I have always kept a pretty close eye on this stuff. B had never been one to watch TV that much, and we don't even have a gaming unit (handheld or otherwise). Since we home schooled and he did not use traditional books for a lot of subjects - he has always spent a fair amount of (supervised) time on the computer. (Which by the way, when you send them off for 6 hours a day to college campus, they can engage in computer screen watching as much as they like - you have very little say.) And now as a teen I think he watches more TV than ever. But that is not what this post is about.

This post is about me learning, yet another new thing this week. A local new 'tv' station approached me this week about advertising with them. I scheduled the appointment to meet with their marketing representative. It didn't take me long to realize I was out of the loop - WAY OUT OF THE LOOP!!! This woman was asking me to advertise on an internet TV superstation (one I will say is well matched to us in terms of their focus is strictly the county I like in - and want my students to come from). But who knew????

Thankfully when i have meetings like this I am able to listen more than talk and I got on this new page quickly and didn't make a fool of myself (too much of a fool of myself). Learning new things....sometimes puts you in that position.

Anyway...if you want to know what I'm talking about (which you probably do because you are way more on the ball than I) check out www.A2YP.TV and see what I learned about this week in this marketing world I am clearly behind in. I'm running to catch up....but B tells me by the time I get 'there' something new will be in the way.

Running to Catch Up

No, I didn't get buried under a pile of office junk when I moved from the cubicle to my office. LOL

But, I do still have a small stack of 'stuff' on the floor that I haven't yet found a place for. I'm thinking by the end of today - what's not gone (put away) I am taking a match to it. LOL

I must say, I have never really cared that I had not had an office. I actually had never given it much thoughts. But....now....I can say, "You can't miss what you've never had." I DO LIKE an office. I like to shut the door when I want to get into something and I don't want any distraction. I like to have scented candles burning and when I come back to my office I am greeted by that pleasure. It makes me feel like I'm doing something nice for myself. I like when someone knocks to come in versus just walking up and starting to talk to me.

So, it's Sunday and I am content sitting in here. The weather is going to be hot and sticky today (so I'm not missing anything outside), the boy is at work (so I would have to be sitting in town anyway), and it's a chance to clear my desk (yeah right, like that is going to happen) before my week starts - which is going to be a very hectic week! It's nice here and it feels good to be productive!

ps - and NO, I have not gotten all the SEO, OMG, ETC....figured out yet. But I'll get there!

SEO,CMS, PPC, CTR, CPC - OMG!!!

Being new to all this website design stuff is making my head spin!!! I come to this job technologically challenged, and then one of the first things I decide we need to do it redesign our website. Somebody slap me!! Thankfully, one of the teachers has some experience and agreed to help (pretty much do it). So I was to give him the content and he was going to execute and we'd work together on the design. Phase one launched, almost a month late, but launched. Now.......
...my teacher is MIA,
...phase II hasn't be completed,
...phase III hasn't started,
...I know I need to worry about SEO,
...I have list upon list of things I want to add to the site,
...wish there was an IT person I could ask,
...and, I am screwed :-)

So...let the learning begin. I'm digging into the web, learning all kinds of new terms, trying to figure things out, testing and looking up acronyms at every turn. This part of my job....not so fun. I need an intern for this - probably a 12 year old techie kid could handle what I need done - all while I am stumbling around.