Turns

Turns out I did enjoy lunch date on Friday.
Turns out she knew about a pottery class which is being offered right here in my town one evening a week ... I have wanted to take a pottery class since high school days.  I'm going to sign up for it today. It begins next month. She has already signed up. It'll be fun to learn pottery and to have a hangout with buddy-girl is a bonus for sure.
Husband, in an effort to make good on his "I will do ballroom dancing classes with you" pre-marriage promise, has given me the University's outreach brochure for the Summer offerings ... Hmmmm ... no dance classes, but I would like to let him off this hook ... hmmmm. My first choice would definitely be YOGA (more then downward dog: yoga for the rest of us) ... That could be interpreted as spiteful ... Oh, here's one ...SOS: emergency preparedness ...what to do when encountering an active "shooter" on campus ... Ummmm duck and shield stuff probably ... What else we got? TAI CHI! THE BLACK HOLE! AFTERNOON AT THE MET (I think I'll do that one alone) ... Here's one on the German cypher machine ... Retirement ... Ah, Square Dancing! Hahaha ... Not so much for me though I did love it in fifth grade. GORILLA IN THE ROOM ( denial - the dismissal or refusal to grant the truth or validity blahblahblah ... So and so was attacked after his findings were published in a respected scientific journal ... Case in depth ... Evidence of no local consciousness ...) . That one should come with complimentary cocktails! ... ECOLOGY OF A CHANGING PLANET ... Probably meets in the University's tree house ... . WWII pillaging ... Oh, here we go ... THE 30 GREATEST ORCHESTRAL WORKS (he's probably teaching during that time slot) THERAPY LITE - HUMOR ... WISDOM OF HISTORY, PART III that does actually sound interesting ... Part III might be a little late on this one. GARDEN OF EDEN: EDIBLE AND MEDICINAL PLANTS (I may be starting to be interested in that) HMMMM .... YOUR BODY: AN OWNER'S GUIDE ... (Monday 8:30 - 10:00 he'll be on the sixth hole by then ...). I think I will invite him to choose, it is the thought that counts.

I've been thinking about some of the info in my notes from the Happiness Hypothesis  book.  He wrote something about one of the things we like is to have our short term goals match well with our long term goals.  That does seem to be my experience.  I thought that idea may have been derived from the avarice of the seventies and eighties ... and now I've been watching long enough to see that being king of your own little hill doesn't really make anyone happy ... I am not a fan of empire building.  But ... goals aren't always formed or realized around one's "job"... right?  Maybe it's easy to confuse your "job" with your "purpose" ... and maybe it is tricky to wrap goals, or benchmarks around one's purpose ... purpose, true purpose is hard enough to find as it is.  I have been spending some time chafing at my "purpose" being chief toilet scubber ... not 'cause I mind cleaning the toilets, but because that doesn't seem to be enough.

Let's see ... a list of what I consciously think my goals have been ...

to be a good wife (and I thought that meant life partner ... still do)
to be a good mother (on going ... maybe I should start looking forward to the upgrade)
to be ... hmmmm, it gets harder here ...
to take good care of the people and things that come my way

to excel at flying stuff
to help other  people move towards excellence there

to finish my time here and move back home ... and home to me is Texas, but probably more specifically where I can see the Gulf ... .
its
The flying stuff was easiest to grapple with, because there are standards. +/- so many feet or KTS or degrees ... I like it.

 My window is open right now and I can hear the birds chirping and also a jet departing the area ... the guy in that seat can glance down and see how close he is to exactly where he knows he should be.  I like that.  I like the whole deal.

I'm going to think about that for a minute ... if I where that person I would have been looking at the weather ... I woulda been looking at some of what I might expect to be dealing with ... environment wise ... I would want to have as much picture as possible so I didn't havetah figure everything out as I went along ... I'd want to have the opportunity to plan what appeared to be the best route through and I would use that as a foundation to adapt from as better info came on board.  I'd know the destination layout for sure.  I would expect and enjoy the little tweaks.
I'd sure be listening to my plane ... he was still climbing when he passed over my house ... still making sure everything is as it should be ... he can't pick up ATC on the ground here but can when he's barely off ... hope he knows there could be several handfuls of student pilots around ... cause they are mostly oblivious to him ... yeah he's busy right now, a few thousand feet before he can reach for another sip of coffee.
Cruise will be fun.  Once he gets everything settled he can kick back a bit.  I'd be wondering if my kids remembered their lunches ... did they turn the flat iron off ... was the door pulled shut, or is ole Sammy wallowing on the couch in the den about now ... and what's going to be on for dinner ... I think I set some chicken out to thaw ... hmmm ... my flying buddy might be warming up to fuss about something ... most every pilot I've flown with likes to air their pet peeves once there's plenty of blue around.  I always wonder if they're clear of the PTT ... .  Oh, I do love landings.  Landing may be my very most favorite part of flying.  You know when you've made a good landing.  Yes, I do love landings.  Landings start way before you can even see the airport ... in a little plane you gotta keep a landing in your back pocket at all times, but I am talking about landings at the airport.  Hmmm ... yes I guess I missed that little detail in the life analogy ... I think I'm going to land over there, but sometimes crap happens suddenly and you gotta land nowish.  I do like that sub-routine in the airplane ... even in a twin I'm keeping an eye on where for the what-ifs ... hmmm.  The NTSB reports are full of too busy thinking about this to realize that kind of accidents.

Well ... I'm glad I thought about that.  I thought I was flying my life towards a landing at the beach.  This is simply a divert.  And I know I can do that.  And ... there's stuff to do to make that lovely.  I was getting stuck for a minute there (maybe a month).  If I were flying I'd be addressing the issue that changed the plan ... if it was some unpleasant turn of events I'd be fixing that as best I could.  But a change of plans isn't always a result of some problem ... .  If I was unexpectedly heading to somewhere else I would be adapting for what to expect there.  I'd be checking on what to expect between here and there ... and I'd be looking at plates probably ... punching in proper frequencies ... I definitely wouldn't be looking at the stuff about where I thought I was going ... hahaha it's funny to think about it that way! "Hey ... leave that alone ... that's the tower I had in mind this morning when we left,  dammit, they are who I want to talk to ...!  Yes,  those are the correct frequencies for the approach I intended to use ... the needles will start coming alive any second now!"

Gosh, this rainy weather totally bites.  It's been wet around here for so many days that it actually feels humid inside the house.  I need to find an inside project.  Maybe I should spend some time thinking about some new goals ... those top two are on going, but the next two seem to be heading somewhere else.  I'm pretty well okay with the flying stuff.  I can pretty well see that that is on hold and maybe even indefinitely so ... can't see around the corners, but I am addressing what I think is the best way to handle that ... I'm looking up.  On the beach thing ... yeah, pretty big deal to be counting down the days, packing,  and have a sudden change of plans ... but, nobody is hurt on that (as we say in baseball).  I can handle this.  I just need to get on board with the change of plans.

... Ummm and maybe develop a plan so I have something interesting to do.  I need a long term goal or two.  That is how I organize myself ... that is how I find my happy.  That ... and my delicious morning coffee ... and the new bottle of my favorite shampoo that's waiting ... no walks today, but I can have fabulous hair!  I wonder if it would be too irreverent to be thankful for great shampoo ... .