Fun online :)

I'm a sucker for these online tell-alls. This one has you enter your full name and then it spits out information about you. Some of this is more true than I care to admit, especially my inner dream. How strange.

You entered: Hannah Marie Yetter

There are 17 letters in your name.
Those 17 letters total to 86
There are 7 vowels and 10 consonants in your name.

What your first name means:

Hebrew	Male	Favor; grace. Biblical mother of the prophet Samuel.
Hebrew	Female	Favour or grace. God has favoured me. Mother of the prophet Samuel in the Old Testament.
English	Female	Favor; grace. Biblical mother of the prophet Samuel.
Biblical	Female	Gracious; merciful; one who gives.

Your number is: 5

The characteristics of #5 are: Expansiveness, visionary, adventure, the constructive use of freedom.

The expression or destiny for #5:
The number 5 Expression endows with the wonderful characteristic of multi-talents and versatility. You can do so many things well. The tone of the number 5 is constructive freedom, and in your drive to attain this freedom, you will likely be the master of adaptability and change. You are good at presenting ideas and knowing how to approach people to get what you want. Naturally, this gives you an edge in any sort of selling game and spells easy success when it comes to working with people in most jobs. Your popularity may lead you toward some form of entertainment or amusement. Whatever you do, you are clever, analytical, and a very quick thinker.

If there is too much of the 5 energy in your makeup, you may express some the negative attitudes of the number. Your restless and impatient attitude may keep you from staying with any project for too long. Sometimes you can be rather erratic and scatter yourself and your energies. You have a hard time keeping regular office hours and maintaining any sort of a routine. You tend to react strongly if you sense that your freedom of speech or action is being impaired or restricted in any way. As clever as you are, you may have a tendency to make the same mistakes over and over again because much of your response is glib reaction rather that thoughtful application. You are in a continuous state of flux brought by constantly changing interests.

Your Soul Urge number is: 9

A Soul Urge number of 9 means:
With a 9 Soul Urge, you want to give to others, usually in a humanitarian or philanthropic manner. You are highly motivated to give friendship, affection and love. And you are generous in giving of your knowledge and experience. You have very sharing urges, and you are likely to have a great deal to share. Your concern for others makes you a very sympathetic and generous person with a sensitive and compassionate nature.

You are able to view life in very broad and intuitive terms. You often express high ideals and an inspirational approach to life. If you are able to fully realize the potential of your motivation, you will be a very self-sacrificing person who is able to give freely without being concerned about any return or reward.

As with all human beings, you are prone to sometimes express the negative attitudes inherent to your Soul Urges. You may become too sensitive and tend to express emotions strongly at times. There can be significant conflict between higher aims and personal ambitions. You may resent the idea of giving all of the time and, in fact, if there is too much 9 energy in your nature you may reject the idea. You may often be disappointed in the lack of perfection in yourself and others.

Your Inner Dream number is: 5

An Inner Dream number of 5 means:
You dream of being totally free and unrestrained by responsibility. You see yourself conversing and mingling with the natives in many nations, living for adventure and life experiences. You imagine what you might accomplished.

You can play here.

Managing others

I don't really have a lot of time to post, things are really crazy at work... we've bought several large packages, and have two companies who are new to this whole process who need to have their hands held as we get them acclimated and we have a staff shortage as well... needless to say, I'm going pretty crazy trying to keep all of the balls in the air that I'm supposed to be monitoring. Of course, part of the craziness is that my 3 month old daughter is really enjoying interacting and playing so much more and I really don't want to be a bad mommy and put work before my daughter... ug. I HATE that I have to struggle to keep my priorities straight. BUT, this post isn't about how wrong it is that American corporate culture treat moms so badly, this is about an insight that I have re: managing others.

As a manager, it doesn't need to be, and shouldn't be about whether you are right or not. If you need something to get done, and your employee states that she thinks its already been done, you go over it with her, and then apologize for having her duplicate her efforts. What you DON'T do is tell her that you'd changed the file the night before (when you hadn't) and that SHE was the one who had done the project wrong based on the out-of-date spreadsheet. And if you DO mention that she was wrong, when she protests that she JUST pulled the file and looked at it and all the data matched her project, you don't argue with her about how wrong she is and how right you are. You apologize for the error and you ask her nicely to please update. Instead of wasting precious time AND leaving your employee with a bad taste in her mouth, you've got what you needed and she's thinking you're great for admitting your fault.

Unfortunately, this basic management principle isn't apparent to all managers. Sad.

Mother - reveal who you are

I am attempting to reconnect with my spiritual side. Over the last few weeks, I've realized that I feel like my spiritual persona is amputated and broken. Seems like even though I am reading the bible and studying about God, I'm still not connecting to her spiritually. When I think about my spiritual persona, I imagine it looks like the angel's wings in Dogma after they have been severed - you can see where the beautiful wings are supposed to be, but all that's left are bloody stumps. I mentioned this to my discipleship group and we are going to pray through the Lord's prayer together this week.

Today, I am focusing on the beginning of the prayer:

"Our mother in heaven, reveal who you are."

I have reached the point where I feel I need to see her/feel her/hear her or my soul will just disappear forever. Reveal who you are!!

Marital bliss

"I swear, if you don't stop leaving your chapstick in your clothes..."

"Well, if you would just wash the clothes that I put in the hamper instead of assuming that all the clothes I have out are dirty, then you wouldn't have this problem..."

We've had this conversation (yes, the same exact conversation) about 100 times in our relationship. I expect to have it again.

Yeah new yarn!

I have now bought my first yarn for my first "real" projects :) Woo hoo!

I visited Yarns Ewenique after work yesterday intending to go in a purchase the yarns that I need to do a little sweater and hat for Annan. I spent an hour in there just feeling yarns and getting an idea of how the whole things works. On Thursday afternoons/evenings they have a sit-n-knit thing where all these knitters come in and work on their projects and talk etc. There were about 10 women there last night!! And they all looked like they knew what they were doing... so, I can take my work up there and get help on places where I get stuck! And make friends with other women who are all these different ages!! I am so excited! :) And the owners of the store were fabulous... Annemieke (prounounced Anna-meeka) spent alot of time helping me locate good alternative yarns and answered my questions.

Knitting freakin' rocks!!

I got a beautiful 100% merino yarn that is about the color of the green apple in my lunch for a sweet little boat neck sweater, and then I got some eggplant color bamboo wool (50% bamboo, 50% wool) for a hat :). The yarn wasn't exactly cheap, but if all goes well, I spent $23 on the yarn for her sweater and $18 for her hat... not sure how much of the yarn will be left over, but that seems about right for the cost of winter items anyway, but I get to make these!

So, I cast on last night for Annan's first sweater :D It is really a pleasure to work with fine, delicate yummy feeling yarn (especially after the cheap feeling stuff Sheri gave me). There is QUITE a difference, really. They aren't full of crap at all.

I need to get another skein or two of this yarn to finish my scarf project (and do up a matching hat), but I want to finish Annan's stuff first.

On inertia

Have you ever come across someone, either in person, or online who you get the distinct feeling could you be you in the future? It happened to me today, when I checked out a lead on a knitting blog from my Creative Mom podcast. Ann (the host) recommended january one as an excellent blog from a very productive knitter with fantabulous photographs. I, of course, had to check it out immediately.

Not only does this woman share my birthday, but she shares my passion for photography, knitting, philosophy, politics, her husband, her friends, her life. It is just so strange to read a list of things she has put together to describe herself to find myself nodding my head, thinking that, yes, this is me, this could be me, this might be me, in another life, in 10 years, in an alternate universe.

Having found her, I'm wondering what I need to do about it now. I have been feeling inertial lately. Like nothing that I'm doing or intending on doing is going anywhere, but rather, I'm continuing to move forward (or backward, up or down) at the same inertial rate as nothing that I can do can exert any outside force on me. Inertia feels like going nowhere, but I know that, if nothing else, time is moving forward, inevitably advancing, each day closing, glaring at me, daring me to show what I've done today to change.

Not a whole, damn, lot. Nada, zero, zip, zilch. I'm stuck, I'm not doing anything, I'm trapped by bills, my job, my pregnancy, all of it. Stuck in inertia... always reacting, not acting. Stuck. I feel like a fly who's been caught on flypaper and who has given up trying to get free. My energy, my will, my desire is fading quickly. Running across this blog for a woman who is very similar to me, but who seems to be living out her dreams is like a jolt of adrenaline, shocking me into action. If she can do it, so can I. I just need to get off my ass and get back in the game. Stop moping around and do something about it. Start setting tiny goals to measure my progress. Take time to appreciate my progress and to reassess the future. To stop and notice the beauty around me, to treasure my friends, to enjoy the now, the mundane, the ordinary.

If she can do it, so can I.