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Welcome to Ari-Wood. Step right up and see the sights. To your left, you will see the delicate fragility of fairy land. On the right, watch out for the fiery dragons. For your safety, we recommend you stay on the path and don't stray into the netherworlds of risk and chance. Alternatively, perhaps you like the benefits that go along with taking that chance..........
All rights to the poetry and stories in Ari-Wood
belong exclusively to the author.
That which is not mine,
That which is not good,
That which is not altruistic....
Is requested to leave.
******
The stories and poems encased in this crystal blog are written from my own imagination and in no way are intended to be viewed as written to any specific person unless I specifically state that it is.
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My heart is a book which you leaf through as simply as the pages of this blog..
Antiqued an worn
The words bleed
From a hidden place
Deep within my chapters
Where only one can see
And whispering spirits tarry
Frayed are my edges
Yet my gliding
Remains beautiful
Not a mere ornament
But a testament to the tooling
Which has geared my life
Sown tightly is my binding
I have weathered the years
I shine with wisdom an character
Like no other book
Yet my cover bares the marks
Of ordinary use
Turn my pages lightly
And you shall read
My hued memories
Of dreams and dreaminess
Of times and timelessness
Of lives and liveliness
Upon my inner pages
Are scribbled
Achromatic dreams
My love
My hopes
My life
You are such a treasured book
All my love, Sister of my heart
(Written by a special sister of my heart...MsAlchemy2...a special gift...I wanted to share.) |
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Imagining
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Apr 30, 2012 7:49 pm
1087 Views
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Imagining....all that could be....should be....will be. I believe....that loneliness is not neverending...that faith offers rewards...that you will find your way...to me. I love you.
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32
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They Call Me the Wanderer....in words, of course.
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Apr 30, 2012 7:45 pm
723 Views
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Going to be a long night. I'll take a nap for a couple hours and then head back to work. Problems in the production report and with all the training last week, I'm several hours/reports behind where I should be going into month end. It's all good, but I'll be totally exhausted by the end of the day tomorrow. At least there are only three major days to month end. If I can make it through Thursday...it gets better from there.
Asked again for feedback on what had everyone so uptight at the meeting last week (from our HR manager) and this time I was told it was all about someone who said "Bullshit" in a passionate tone. Really? So why have y'all been telling each one of us a different story and this is the first story that didn't have anything to do with me?
Talked to my HR friend who told me to document the conversations. They actually made her mad. Really, they kind of make me laugh, it's so flipping stupid, except that the stories will get out and about in the plant and people will start to wonder what I did. There are enough stories going around about me at that plant to keep everyone in gossip for a year.
The funniest part is that the stories are all garbage. Like that I have a "friends with benefits relationship" with my best friend. They seem to think I go back to sleeping with him between boyfriends, which is entertaining cause first, I don't have boyfriends, I had a fiance. I didn't give him up, I lost him. Dean has multiple wives (we call his new girlfriend Six for short). Second, we've never slept together, we are just really good friends.
Let me think...I question stupidity in the workplace. That's who I am. I don't play games, don't want to, and I ask the hard questions everyone else avoids...like why we have no female managers at the plant. Managers get uncomfortable when I start asking questions, cause I rarely stop until I have answers.
Michelle went and bought me a beautiful yellow rose today because she said I needed something bright and beautiful with all the crap going on. Besides...it was a great match for the blouse I wore today. Surprising how much a simple act can pick up the whole day.
Phillip worked on the guest room downstairs yesterday, ripping out drywall. Once the walls have been bleached and I've put in a moisture barrier, we'll put up new drywall, reframe the closet so I can install shelves in an exterior wall, build a small set of shelves for another wall, paint, build and install the oak trim, and lay the tile floor. It will knock one more room off the list. Oh yeah, I need a better door and closet doors in there. It's going to be a pretty nice bedroom/library. That's the eventual plan for it since it's right beside my study.
The icky part is, he ripped out drywall in that exterior wall and found a whole nest of dead mice stinking up the room. Damn...I wondered why it smelled so bad. Makes me almost want to rip all the drywall out in the house. Almost. Not quite. There's always a surprise when I do...like an 8" concrete wall between the two bedrooms downstairs...who builds a room on the exterior of the foundation? Or finding out your entry way is framed wrong and has no insulation. Oh my, the joys of owning and remodeling a home. So how come I enjoy it so much?
Signed up for way too many groups on LinkedIn...but they are all about cost accounting, which should give me a resource as I study for my CMA. Not a bad trade. I'll have a lot to read, but I'll gain a ton towards my test.
And now...I think I'll shoot over to FB and then head to bed for my nap. 2 a.m. comes quite early and I want to be back at the office by then.
Sleep well, wrapped in love. You are...I promise. I love you.
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5
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After a long week....
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Apr 27, 2012 9:45 pm
861 Views
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I'm too tired to care...
Month end next week means another long week...and the following week I'll be in Salt Lake City for several days doing a Crucial Conversations training. Hmmm...another long week. Ah well, can't be bored with this schedule.
Have a great and peaceful night. I hope that God brings to each of you that which will most move you forward on your path.
From my heart to yours...
A.
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10
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They're waiting for me to kill him....
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Apr 26, 2012 9:34 pm
1052 Views
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I love what I do and I'm very good at it. That's not bragging or exaggeration, it's a simple statement of fact. I have loved my job for most of the past ten years, and even more for the majority of the past six. Tonight I'm trying to find a reason to stay there...and I'm losing the fight.
My supervisor recently took a promotion which left my co-worker and me waiting for a new supervisor. We got one. I can't stand him. I knew we were going to have problems within an hour of his actually starting, when he started complaining about how dirty his office was, how inconsiderate our employees are because we work in a manufacturing site (mostly processing ore....or dirt) and they actually track dirt into the offices, how much he hates our systems, and then he had the audacity to ask me to stand at the printer to wait for his printing. Do the words "I'm not your flipping secretary" mean anything? I didn't actually say them, but it took all I had to keep my mouth shut.
He and I are both taking the CMA program. The difference in us? He keeps complaining that he can't work on his program at home because he has a six month old baby (and a wife), so he'll have to study at work. He also tells me he expects to fail the test at least once. Dumb move with me. I've spent six years keeping up a home, all my animals, the remodeling on my home, and full time college classes. And I absolutely refuse to fail the CMA exam. Actually, I probably didn't score points with him when I responded, "Failure is not an option for me."
He barely acknowledges my presence in the office except when he's busy telling me that my co-worker "is a Bishop...wow...." They are both LDS so the Bishop status scores points with our supervisor. The new projects I've been given have all come from my old supervisor. He wants to know exactly how much time I spend working for other facilities. Hard question to answer...it depends on the day. Some days I get a call first thing in the morning asking me to take on a reporting function...some months I'm buried in other facilities' work...and sometimes I do very little for them. It depends on the day, the week, the month...and how busy other managers are. I am the back-up accountant for nearly all of the NA Wholesale accountants...which keeps me very busy.
We've been in two days of PBL training. It's a new process that's supposed to give us key metrics by which to measure how well our department is succeeding in moving the business forward. What it really means is a ton more work...and my supervisor and co-worker only accepted one joint task for our department. I got about eight. I'm okay with that, it keeps me busy and challenged and gives me new skills.
But...I am a pretty playful person and I have really good relationships with most all of the people I work with. Translation - most people tease me in literally all settings and I hand it back to them. A task today was for us to write up expectations we have of our supervisors...while they write up their expectations of us. Imagine our surprise (and there were 13 of us in this training), when the supervisors came back and one of their expectations was that we would "be very aware of the impact of our words." We all looked at one another and wondered where the heck that came from. The next comment was, "There is entirely too much joking going on and often the words used are offensive." That brought it down to size and the four women in the room looked at one another knowing exactly who was being addressed.
We broke for lunch and two of us pulled managers aside to ask..."is there something I should know about that comment?" The answer I got was that my supervisor was offended by our teasing one another. Okay...let's take that further. What exactly was said that was so offensive, because all the teasing surrounded the situation in which I knocked myself out with a mop a couple of years ago...and no one said anything which offended me. I mostly laughed in response and teasingly said, "Can we put a ceiling fan in this room?" That's how I knocked myself out. The mop handle hit the ceiling fan in my hallway and flew back over the top of my head at about a gazillion miles per hour. I couldn't remember anything offensive on any level being said.
Another woman was told that my supervisor doesn't know how to handle me and isn't comfortable with me. Probably true. He's an idiot, I'm not. Anyone who can't recognize that if you want to be an effective supervisor over me you have to be both smarter and more driven than I am...is an idiot. My new supervisor is neither and I'm really struggling to respect him.
So...in the interests of promoting better rapport, I sat him down today and said, "I'm feeling that there is tension between us. What can I do to alleviate this?"
"Nothing. Well, close your office door when you have your headset on."
Okay. I usually do, but occasionally I don't get it all the way closed. I can rectify that.
"I'll call you on the phone if I want to talk to you."
Well okay then. I'll just stay in my little prison and do my job.
"Well....and you know, I see that you and the other women in the meeting are really close and share lots of teasing but it's unprofessional and borders on harassment."
Hmmmm...give me an example.
"I can't, I don't remember specifics."
Well, I need parameters.
"I just don't remember. And maybe I'm too conservative, but I'm really looking out for the company. I don't want any lawsuits coming out of the teasing."
Lawsuits for what?
"For harassment."
I wasn't being harassed, I was being teased by people I work with. I'm also not a litigious person.
"I know, but it was borderline."
Okay, let's look at this another way. There are maybe two dozen women working in a 300 employee workforce. We're well aware that it is a male dominated industry and we accept that sometimes things which are borderline will be said.
"But it's not right, and I just think you all need to understand the implication of your words."
What words?
"I don't remember."
Fine. You win, I won't tease anyone any more and I won't respond to their teasing.
"You can't do that, Arre. That's who you are. I don't want to change you and I don't want you to hate your job. You are an excellent employee who goes far beyond anyone's expectations and you produce huge amounts of work."
"I can and will do that. I've done it before. You get what you ask for. As for my job, I officially hate it. Happy?"
The rest of the women? They are peering out their office windows waiting for me to kill him.
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23
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Longing
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Apr 25, 2012 9:18 pm
904 Views
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What hopes we cling to, those dreams which may not be possible but excite the possibilities of our heart. I have lived my life believing nothing is impossible, even that which the world tells me can never be. It cannot change, for in modifying my beliefs do I forsake all that I hold closest to my soul. Words cannot express the emotions which drive my actions, although I may over-rationalize, I recognize that I am driven/guided by the feeling which nestle deep within hidden corners. Your words...frighten, tempt, ignite...and I am the tiny butterfly drawn to the sun...aware that proximity may reduce my wings to burnt cinders...or provide the currents to lift me higher...with you wrapped in my arms.
The ocean wraps her arms around my heart and carries it to places only imagined. In her cleansing touch am I empowered to reach for more. In her turbulent emotions am I drawn deeper, believing I yet have time to escape. Yet I recognise the strength of the undertow....and in hope do I let it carry me deeper. One delicate touch wipes away a lingering tear as strong arms carry me to a place of tomorrow...a dream of love which radiates throughout all of our tomorrows.
Dream with me...feel the depth of her compassion...and her cruelty. For within those dreams lie all that could be....a tangled skein of silk from the Weaver's stitching, the knots are not yet set, nor the pattern designated.
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10
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Touch of Whimsy
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Apr 24, 2012 9:37 pm
867 Views
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Your fingers tangled in my hair
As the wind whipped it past your face.
Laughter, a near forgotten memory,
Rippled over the water in harmony
With the whispered heartbeat of the earth.
Each touch a memory unlived.
The first seagull of the season
Danced upon the currents before me,
Wings gracefully arced
Over unseen dreams,
Taunting me with hungers unremembered
Pulsating with vibrancy unforgotten.
Two elemental souls, elementally driven
By the urgency of the universe.
Have you felt it?
Can you taste me in Heaven’s tears
Spilling like rain over skin longing?
I am the rhythm of your heart,
You are the heat washing over my soul.
I feel your need in the almost tangible scent
Of waters long unseen, fragments of hopes,
Lances of lightning flashing in your mind
As you imagine….
Eyes closed, my fingers tracing
Hope….across your lips.
A gentle kiss and I am, once again,
The merest touch of whimsy…
Do you dare…believe?
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14
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The Rambling Rose....
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Apr 23, 2012 9:27 pm
814 Views
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Working late again...seems like I'm getting back in that cycle...not because I'm asking for more work (although I have been), but because we have so many meetings and trainings going on right now. Performance Based Leadership, Crucial Conversations...and with turnaround coming up in a month, I'm about to get buried for another month. So...work from home at night to keep it all caught up.
The benefit is...at the end of May I'll take some paid days off to go visit a friend in Rock Springs. It's great...the invitation came from her husband. Huh...scary when you give me ammunition to use. And then at the end of June I'm going to take a week (of mostly paid days off) to go visit friends in Grand Junction and Catrina. I'm so excited. I get to meet the midget. I haven't told her quite how long I'm staying...I want her to get really scared. And who knows...while I'm there, maybe I'll shoot down and spend a few hours visiting James. Haven't seen him in several years.
I don't get out and about often enough between all the years of studying and the upcoming test, so I get really excited when I plan a trip. And I'm thinking...I'm going to the east coast at some point this year...but I'm not sure how to work that out. Lisa wants me to go to the Outer Banks to spend time with her, Becc wants me to go to Pennsylvania, I have business to take care of in Connecticut, Carolyn wants us to get together...where ever we can pull it off, and one of my spare kids is yelling that I need to come visit him in Boston. There isn't enough Arre to go that far...or is it that there isn't enough money or time.
Although...I stil have three weeks vacation left this year...hmmm. How many hours can I pull off working from home? And I still need to make it to Saskatchewan to visit Chelle and Bud.
Great day at work after a really rough start. Somehow I managed to simply brush the finger I sprained last year against a chair and it shot from normal to extreme pain in about 1.2 sseconds. So now I have physical therapy...for a ring finger. What the heck is up with that? How do you build muscles in a finger you only really use when you type or run an adding machine? But, the do-gooder says if I don't do PT, it will just keep getting injured every time I do absolutely nothing to it. I believe her after today.
And now...the animals are all sleeping and I'm beginning to wind down. It was nearly 80 here today...far too flipping hot for a delicate fairy...and I'm wondering if it's time to install the trusty swamp coolers. Of course, we can go from 80 to 30 overnight...which is why I'm only wondering and not yet acting. It's awfully early in the year to be this warm.
Anyone on here really good with Excel? Really good...as in with formulas. I'm working on a spreadsheet and having a heck of a time with a formula. The issue is that I have no unique identifiers...and while I can create them...I may make the whole situation more complicated by doing so. I'd usually use a V-Lookup but...I'm not sure how to make it work in the circumstances. Still, without the formula I'll spend hours over the next two months reviewing an extra spreadsheet...which I don't particularly care to do when I'm crazy busy. So...any Excel whizzes?
And with that...I'm going to run away and dive bomb the bed. Do you think we avoid it when it's too big...and too empty...and too lonely?
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9
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Vocalization
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Apr 22, 2012 10:17 pm
781 Views
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I often think voices make people more real. I can read your words, I can write to you for a year...but the sound of your voice brings you to life. Some voices annoy...some voices inspire...some voices simply crawl right up your spine and take a place at the base of your neck like nails on a chalkboard...and some slide the opposite direction...to the small of your back where it nestles like fingers softly stroking sensitive skin. I listen for tone...I'm very drawn to slightly deeper masculine voices. I listen for inflection. You can tell a great deal about a person by the way they emphasize their words...and sometimes you learn things they don't want you to know. I also pay attention to speed...mostly so I can actually be attentive to what is being said.
Have you ever listened to someone from the east coast speak? You have to take your finger out of your ear and let the words shape themselves around your eardrum so you don't miss them. (It's okay Cat; I still love you.) People from this part of the country are said to be slow....but I only find that true in the elderly. I am not slow, much. Actually, I'm not considered to be from this part of the country; I've only lived here ten years...and people from Colorado are considered to be east coast in Idaho. I'm joking...kind of...not really.
I love voices as much as eyes. Eyes let me see into your soul...your voice shows me who you are inside. My ex used to tell me that people would hear my voice on the phone and picture a blonde southern belle...and then they'd meet me and I'm nothing like that, although...if you annoy me enough, I can do blonde bimbo really well.
Picture a slow hesitant voice barely above a whisper from the kind of blonde they make jokes about. "Well, are you sure I'm supposed to plug the thingy in there? I'm just not sure I can do it....isn't that going to hurt it?" Last time I did blonde bimbo...I irked the heck out of someone on the east coast. They thought I was dumber than a box of rox...right up until the last ten seconds in the conversation when I slam dunked them. Don't play me, I won't act stupid...and you won't end up feeling stupid and have to hang up on me.
Actually, I got my voice practicing for a phone job. (Unspit your coffee, Sharon.) I wanted to be all I could be in this man's Army. Okay...that really was a joke....although I've been asked a few times. It just takes lots of practice. You have to bat your eyelashes more than a few times, put on fake eyelashes and too much eyeshadow, and slash hot pink lipstick across your mouth. Motivation is everything, don't you know. Kissy, kissy (oohhh don't do it....)
I don't have a great voice. It's....sultry...according to Sharon. You should hear me singing. It's insultrying to your ears.
Have you ever heard a voice that made you just stop and listen? I once met a man from Switzerland who simply said, "Arreana, a beautiful name. There is a museum in Italy called The Arreana." The softly sibilant tones rolled over my spine and I couldn't have moved if you'd paid me. I could have listened to that 70 year old man roll the R's in my name for an hour.
And when a voice surprises you and you actually want to keep hearing it...then what?
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6
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Tonight, 7 pm, Ohio room
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Apr 22, 2012 12:34 pm
865 Views
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Hmmm...LordsLady is trying to get everyone she can into the Ohio room at 7 pm CST tonight for a good old fashioned visit. If y'all can make it...come on in. I know I'm going to go stir the pot...I mean, visit my friends.
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18
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