Good Morning!

What a gorgeous snowy morning! Driving in the weather is a lot easier with proper tires, now isn't it? One might think by now that would be second nature, living in Wisconsin and Colorado for most of my life, but let me remind you that no matter what type of car you have, new tires are costly. My drive was fairly low stress for this kind of snowy morning in Colorado, one where the side roads require you to travel 1/2 to 1/3 the normal speed and the high ways move at a crawl, even with all those horrid chemicals they lay down to melt the snow. The drive home may be a bit more challenging, we are expected to get another 3 - 6" at work and 5 - 10" on my side of town. I suspect they'll let us out early.

I'm fighting a bit of an internal work issue and am not quite sure how to handle it. It's a long complicated story but it has to do with a web admin who's girlfriend is about to have their first (and unplanned) baby and the amount of work unfairly thrust upon him before he takes leave and my being told to redirect an issue back on him that he wasn't able to handle adequately, but some how now I am taking the heat for it not being completed properly. Even though I communicated the detail to both my supervisor AND the web admin quite clearly, but my supervisor insisted I put it back on his plate. I may just end up eating it on this one, taking one for the team as it were. Oh well, there are worst things in life then letting something go that I can't control, right?

Last night I spent some time considering my long term professional goals. My heart is speaking wildly to me about giving my time and energies to the environment and the protection of animals. It feels stronger all the time and my dilemma is that I cannot quite determine what that really means or what to do with it? Would I work directly with neglected and abused animals? Can I really work with animals who have been abused? My emotional capacity may not be strong enough to withstand that on a regular basis. My heart is so sensitive to suffering, it engulfs me and fills me with grief as if I were experiencing it myself. Could I work patiently with pet owners to educate them about how to better care for their pets? That's a huge part of advocacy for the SPCA, besides the protection of these animals that need help, it's also working with their families to teach them how to better meet the needs of their companion and/or farm animals. I don't know if I can be in direct contact with those accused of abusing their animals, though working to bring them to justice seems part of the job and I think it's something I'd have to learn to deal with it. And how can I also advocate for the protection of the environment and educate the government about ways in which we can cohabitate with the earth and not continue to steadily defile it?

Sometimes I feel like an 18 year old, facing my options like it is an open book and really, it IS an open book. I'll take it, there is something exceptional about this time for me. I have committed myself to some short term goals, but the longer term ones...what I do in 3 - 5 years from now, seems wide open and that's pretty exciting stuff!