Wellness is the Word

One of the other bloggers in the Canadian bloggers group on Facebook asked us (other bloggers, that is) if we had chosen a word for 2014, something to build a theme around in our lives and on our blogs.

It did not take me long to choose one: wellness.

To me, this means not just physical health but also spiritual and mental health. It speaks to harmony between the different facets of my life. After skidding off the rails last fall, I've regrouped and am making small changes to bring myself back to a condition where I can enjoy my life.

Here is the graphic I made up that expresses my approach to wellness.

The journey to wellness can only be taken
one day and one step at a time.

It is an approach that frustrates me (I want everything to happen RIGHT NOW!) but which is realistic and ultimately will, I believe, reap the greatest results.

I've already written about the four daily goals that I think will help (walk every day, meditate, do yoga, and eat well), but I'm also doing other things:

• reducing dependence on medications (I've already cut out three),
• getting treatment for my allergies, 
• looking for part-time or consulting work rather than full-time, 
• volunteering with a mental health organization in Ottawa, and 
• exploring my interest in creative and non-fiction writing.

Rather than having a particular goal (like writing a book by the end of the year), I have a focus: to direct my path towards wellness.

Do you have a word that will motivate you this year?

(By the way, that picture was taken in the forest across from our home. I hope to have a dog to join me on walks there very soon.)

This is not an emergency.

You can buy this keychain on Amazon.co.uk
(And don't you love how the website says, "dispatched," instead of "shipped"?)

I love that proverb, though I would never actually say it to anyone. In fact, I am more inclined to help someone out of a tight spot, partly because I've been there myself, a time or two, and partly because I really like to make people smile.

[I'm much tougher here on my blog than I ever would be in real life. For example, though I rant about grammar and spelling errors here, the only person I ever correct on Facebook is my own son. And then, only because I know he knows better, and he knows I love him, and he knows I'm doing it sarcastically. (I've been told I "try too hard." So sue me. Whatever.)]

So it surprises me when I come across someone who is less obliging.

Well, today it was I who brought what I considered an emergency to someone who stood her ground. I didn't like it.

So here's the deal. After almost two years of not testing my blood sugar, I finally bought a glucose monitor and discovered -- holy heck! -- my uncontrolled diabetes was out of control. Over the past three weeks I've been a little more careful with my diet, but really haven't done anything exercise-wise.

But I HAVE done a lot of obsessing [googling]. Here's what I've learned:

• Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia, under 3 mmol/L) constitutes a real emergency and can rapidly (within minutes-to-hours) lead to seizures, coma, etc.
• High blood sugar (hyperglycemia, above 7 mmol/L) can lead to ketoacidosis which causes all sorts of nastiness like organ failure and coma, but over a prolonged period (months). The patient should see a doctor. 

My problem is high blood sugar, and my average over the past three weeks has been 13.9 mmol/L, so, yeah, I knew I needed to see a doctor. But I'm still waiting for the New & Improved doctor to accept me as a patient. And I figured, I got in this mess over many months, so what's the panic? 

Then I saw this in the instructions that came with my glucose monitor. 

IMMEDIATELY

I called the doctor-elect. I am not yet on the roster. I didn't want to go back to my ex-doctor, since we had had such a nice, cordial break-up and I didn't want to have make-up medicine. So I went to a walk-in clinic. hoping for a one-night (or one-month) stand.

The doctor at the walk-in clinic did not accept that I had divorced my family doctor, and told me to go see him about my blood sugar. I almost cried. 

But she's right, of course. 

Bad behaviour on my part does not constitute an emergency on her part.

If it were truly an emergency, she'd have done something. It's not. It's just my current obsession.

I've decided that I'll give the doctor-elect a couple more weeks, and in the meantime, make a better effort to be healthy, but I'm not going to panic.

Here is me not panicking.

A Different Lifetime

Peter, age 4

Do you ever look back on certain periods of your life and wonder how you coped?

Today, I read Ruth Schwarz's blog, "the mom" where she outlined just ONE of her days caring for her special-needs daughter Davy as well as her three sons, and it brought back memories. She writes,

I had to leave the house by 8:30 to get to Davy's first therapy (OT) at 9. had to secure a sitter (thank you Heather) and a ride to and from preschool for Harper. Went to Davy's second therapy (pt) at 10. Then had to jam over to CHOC by 11:15 for her feeding therapy. Then had a speech evaluation right after that.

And that's just her morning; she and Davy didn't make it home till six.

Such is life when you have a child with special needs. And it is exhausting, completely draining.

I have a frozen-in-time image of sitting in a waiting area at the Ottawa Children's Treatment Centre (OCTC) (about which I cannot say enough good things!). Peter, who has Asperger Syndrome, had back-to-back appointments for occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy.

Emily was just a toddler and she was bored. As a single-income family, we couldn't afford to hire a sitter while I took Peter to his appointments.

What others may not realize is that all of these therapies for a child require parental involvement. I was not just sitting in an uncomfortable lounge chair reading year-old magazines. I was learning and working along with Peter, and was expected to continue these exercises at home between appointments. (I failed so often, though I always started out with the best intentions.)

It is not physically arduous, but it is emotionally draining: my inner dialogue kept hoping he would surprise us. My outer dialogue quietly encouraged him without making him feel like he was disappointing us. I was also conscious of wanting to impress the professionals by what a Good Mother I was, or at least have them feel I was adequate.

And, really, Peter's needs were quite minimal, compared to many of the kids seen at the OCTC. He was able to walk, dress, and feed himself. He could talk in full sentences and make his needs known. But he was behind on all the milestones, and there was an emotional/psychological aspect to his disability that I found hard to explain.

This was at least a year before he was diagnosed, so at the time, we were just dealing with an interesting array of challenges. In some ways he was so close to "normal" that I wondered if I were not making things up or exaggerating things. But, to me, he seemed vulnerable, so I kept pushing for help.

Peter has made great strides, and we are so proud of him. Those days are so far away, but surprisingly immediate in my mind. I sometimes still feel like that exhausted, young mother.

Retroactive "Live-blogging" Tax Season 2011

You know what? I'm only half way through writing this and have come to the conclusion that it is boring as shit. Actually, shit is far more interesting (just ask any mother of a newborn). So let me just give you a couple of highlights:

- Steve did my taxes! Yay!
- Then, because I am sick, he took them to the post office and brought me back a chocolate-mousse pastry with a gooey caramel centre!
- If Steve did the numbers correctly, it looks like I'm getting a tax refund from Canada this year!
- Next year, I will have one source of income, in one country. My taxes will be straightforward, and I should be able to do them myself.

- Fin -

One of my very first posts on this here blog was about how much I detest doing my taxes. It's ridiculous, really. This year, I procrastinated worse than any year previously.

My taxes are complicated because I have five sources of income from two countries, I cashed in some RRSPs, sold a house (and made a profit), and ceased owning a rental property. Do you have any idea how many supplementary forms that demands?!

March 5, 2011
Filed my U.S. federal and state tax returns. Since they won't do direct deposit to a Canadian institution, I had them snail-mail it to me.

In the past five years, the amount I've owed Revenue Canada has been roughly equal to what I've received as a refund from Uncle Sam. So waiting for the cheques to arrive gave me a credible excuse to dilly-dally.

All my tax files remain neatly stacked in a green folder on the coffee table.

April 1, 2011
Cheques arrive.

All my tax files remain neatly stacked in a green folder on the coffee table.

April 8, 2011
Cheques are deposited, but require a two-week holding period. Yay! More reasons to procrastinate.

At some point, Steve took pity on me and bravely offered to do my taxes for me this year, which saves me great sums of cash. Hiring a professional to do just the rental property part cost me close to $500 last year. (Maybe Steve just got tired of seeing all my tax files neatly stacked in a green folder on the coffee table.)

April 23, 2011
Steve declares, "We should do your taxes this weekend." I proceed to place the newspaper sections erratically over all my tax files which remain neatly stacked in a green folder on the coffee table.

April 30, 2011
Tax Day. [Note: I learned after the fact that taxes are actually due on midnight Monday, May 2, but I'm heading out of town on the 1st, so that extension is kind of moot.]

- 2:00 p.m.
Open the green folder and realize that my Canadian T4 is not in there. I must have left it at work. 
Get a paper cut.

- 3:00 p.m.
Drive to work. Half way there, get a call from Steve saying that he has found the errant T4. Return home.

Married to the Military

I cannot imagine my life
without this man.

Several months after Steve and I married, my sister-in-law asked me, "So how does it feel being married to the military?"

I don't recall exactly what I replied, but it was something along the lines of, "I didn't marry the military; I married your brother."

As a military kid herself, she knew better. The military has been the landscape of our marriage, of our family. It has shaped many of our choices, it has shaped my career. It has affected our children's education, friendships and mental health.

Indeed, what hasn't it touched?

Some of the aspects of being a military spouse are common to families who do not have a military member:

• Moving from one location to another, including to another country. (My brother and his family have lived in as many (or more) houses, including a home in Singapore.)
• Living apart for periods of time - and not because you're having marital difficulties.
• One spouse giving up or modifying career options for the sake of the other.
• Getting caught up in the social expectations to conform: to marry, to be heterosexual, to put work before family. 

The one big difference is that corporate execs or bureaucrats don't generally put their lives on the line when they go to work. But police officers, first responders, firefighters, and some defense contractors do that. As spouses, we share the worry that our best friend might never come home.


Brian, 2002

When Steve returned home after his six-month deployment to Sarajevo, our five-year-old greeted him excitedly with the words,

"Daddy! I thought you were dead!"

My heart broke that he had been worried about that for the whole time his dad was gone.
 
So, yes, being a military wife has certainly had an impact on our life.
 
I'm thinking about all this today for two reasons: (1) this Thursday will be our 27th wedding anniversary (yes, I was a teenaged bride, why do you ask?), and (2) a friend shared a heart-wrenching blog about a military spouse who was on the brink of suicide and is now in residential care, in part because of the effect military life had on her husband, her marriage and her own mental health.

In the first case, the years have flown by, and we will celebrate them.

In the second case, I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the lack of support from the military for this woman was tragic. Thank God she survived.

But I have a few thoughts on the matter. (I'm an opinionated gal. I have thoughts on EVERYTHING.) For one thing, I think we underestimate how emotionally difficult it is to live with someone who is depressed. "I felt very helpless" she writes of coping with her husband's depression and heavy drinking. "I knew my husband needed some sort of counseling, but I also knew it wasn’t something you could force someone into. I started to feel very overwhelmed."

And because her husband's mental health was not treated comprehensively, but was simply medicated, his behaviour had an increasingly negative impact on her and eventually the marriage broke down. In fact, if you tot up all the stressors in her life, you get a picture of someone who is at serious risk for stress-related illness. 

So, being a military spouse certainly didn't help her, but the same thing could happen to anyone who finds herself (or himself) without support, especially from her or his partner. As this compassionate website puts it, suicidal thinking "happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain."

My point - and I do have one - is that we shouldn't assume that being a military family is worse or better than any other lifestyle, but that we should all be aware of people who are at risk of being overwhelmed and do what we can to help anyone cope with the pain of excessive stress and depression.

Shame on the military network for letting her - and her husband - down.

Shame on us if we don't reach out to those around us who need someone to help shoulder their pain.

Now go give someone a hug or say a prayer or light a candle or send someone a note to let them know you're thinking about them.

A Drain on the Pocketbook



Shelley Long and Tom Hanks had nothing on us.

It's been 25 years since Shelley and Tom had us laughing at the trials and tribulations of home ownership. When the movie came out, Steve and I were newlyweds, still renting our homes. I don't think we even saw the movie at the time as it didn't relate to anything in our lives.

Well.

Here we are, living the dream, er, the nightmare. Chez Sibbald IS The Money Pit.

I don't remember much of the movie, but I do recall that when the couple moved in, the house had been stripped of all fixtures - even the ones that were nailed down. Similarly, when we moved in, we found that the house lacked any of the following:

• towel bars or hooks
• toilet-paper holders
• mirrors

Not as bad as their situation (I believe they didn't even have doors), but humorous nevertheless.

Our house inspection had warned us:

• the roof was on its last legs (or shingles)
• the fireplace had no flue (I'm not even sure what that is)
• the chimney needed a new liner and repointing of the bricks
• the furnace was old and tired
• the air conditioner was ready for replacement
• several of the windows were old (including two single-glazed)

So what did we do? Why, we set about making improvements!

I think our house deserves one of these!


• an inground pool! (Oh, sweet mercy, will I some day regret that decision?)
• landscaping to correct the grade in the backyard in order to put in the pool!
• upgraded wiring to allow for hooking up the pool!
• gas line in order to heat the pool!
• double the number of cabinets in the kitchen!
• new chandelier! (small potatoes, but still)
• built-in shelving in the living room!
• new furnace!
• new air conditioner!

And then, the money ran out. Truth be told, the money ran out well before these were done. We're still paying off the landscaping. And, um, the furnace was on a one-year deferred payment plan, so it comes due in July.

This is the fifth house we've owned, so it's not like we're completely new to this. But we'd spent the previous five years in a rental home which was only six or seven years old and needed no improvements (though if we'd been the owners, I'm sure we'd have found places to spend money - not least of which would be getting rid of the beige carpet and all the brass light fixtures).

The home-improvement cycle is like childbirth: you swear you'll never do it again, but then you fall in love with the results.

You'll note that we have not yet tackled the following from the inspector's list:

• the roof was on its last legs (or shingles)
• the fireplace had no flue (I'm not even sure what that is)
• the chimney needed a new liner and repointing of the bricks
• several of the windows were old (including two single-glazed)

Those are on the agenda for this summer and fall. Along with finishing the landscaping around the pool (it currently is little more than a gorgeous pool, a beautiful patio and a great deal of mud surrounded by a lovely fence).

SURPRISE!
The paint is right at the base of the maple.
Click picture for larger view.


Plus, we still have to deal with the surprises, like the sewage drain from our house to the main sewer line. Said drain has been crushed by a very mature tree (presumably planted by the city) on city property. While it is almost certainly City responsibility to pay for the repair, there will likely be some collateral costs to us as well.

Or like the surprise ant infestation. Latest word is that they are carpenter ants - so not to be taken lightly. We'll have them exterminated soon. Ka-ching!

And, the city is "rehabilitating" the sewer system on our street this summer, which means they'll be ripping up the bottom third of our driveway. Our driveway is in dreadful condition as it is, so now would seem a good time to get the whole thing regraded and repaved. Right?

Part of me regrets doing the pool before we'd done the other more sensible improvements, but a pool is really a long-term lifestyle purchase (I won't call it an investment, because it's not). Ten years from now we'll be empty-nesters and the pool will see much less use, so we seized the moment.

I fully anticipate a comment along the lines of Anonymous, who wrote, "You are so lucky to be able to afford it! You are certainly not living in poverty. :) ," which is true, and I am grateful. But I also know there are others who consider our two professional incomes and mutter to themselves (or to others, but never to us), "What do they do with all that money?" The answer? Possibly not what you would do with it, but it's certainly not burning a hole in our pockets.

Do NOT wave the red flag!

Look out - or someone's gonna get hurt!
Source

I've been fortunate to work with some incredible - and incredibly talented - people. I've been inspired by them and challenged by them. I've learned a lot from peers, colleagues and bosses.

One of my first bosses was truly impassioned about his work. He cared deeply about working for CIDA - and that zeal was contagious. It ensured that, whatever project or task we were working on, we never lost sight of why we were doing it. He also (bless his heart) trusted me and gave me a great deal of leeway. He listened to everyone.

That combined atmosphere of passionate vision and trust built one of the best teamwork environments I've experienced. At the time, it was something I took for granted, but I don't anymore.

Sadly, I've also encountered some workplace bullies along the way. They drive me crazy, but I have no idea how to deal with them.

I'm not talking about the out-and-out abusive bully or harasser. I'm talking about those slippery passive-aggressive eels. Everything they say is defensible. If you transcribed it, everything they've said would sound reasonable. (If only you could record the tone of voice, the sarcasm or snippyness.) They don't listen; they're never wrong; the only way a disagreement ends is when you stop arguing and give up.

What puzzles me is that these people are often also very charismatic. Smart - brilliant, even - witty, well spoken. They are people that I find myself wanting to suck up to, to befriend and impress. It drives. Me. Nuts. (Sorry about the staccato punctuation, Jeff, but it really does work in this context.)

It brings out my own passive-aggressive tendencies! Never a good thing.

I dug up an article I remember Donna Karlin, my former shadow coach, posting. She covers some of the hallmarks of a bully and suggests,

If you challenge them again but this time have an audience or allies, they will be disempowered and their bullying house of cards will all come toppling down...


If you're being bullied in the workplace, speak to staff relations. Leadership. Anyone you can who will support you and not try to sweep this under the rug.

Good advice, but personally, I've never been able to confront any of the people I've perceived as bullies. I've just avoided them. (Hence the title of this post.) About all I can boast is that I've become much swifter at recognizing them and not wasting time either arguing with them or trying to win them over.
What about you? How have you dealt with this, either in the workplace or in your personal life? Any tips to share?

Conscious Incompetence

Pileated Woodpecker

At a conference I attended recently, one of the presenters introduced me to the expression "conscious incompetence." It's that psychologically painful stage when you realize just how incompetent you are at a new skill. It comes from the so-called four stages of competence.
Here's the Wikipedia explanation:

1. Unconscious Incompetence
The individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it.

2. Conscious Incompetence
Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.

3. Conscious Competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.

4. Unconscious Competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes "second nature" and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). He or she may or may not be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.

Looking at these, it occurs to me that not only is conscious incompetence the most uncomfortable stage, it is probably the only stage that doesn't actually make you feel good. Here's my synopsis (much pithier than Wikipedia's):

Unconscious Incompetence => Ignorance is bliss
Conscious Incompetence => OMG, I totally suck!
Conscious Competence => Dayum, I'm good!
Unconscious Competence => Gretzky on skates

I am currently at the "OMG, I totally suck!" stage when it comes to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and it is kind of driving me nuts. I know just enough to do some really cool stuff, but also enough to get into trouble.

For example, I did some subtle (I think) but good things to Brian's picture at the top of this post, using Photoshop. Here's the original picture, at right. It's a good picture: high resolution, good shot of the woodpecker, decent exposure. But the few tweaks I did (not just cropping) make it stronger, I think.

On the other hand, in trying to do those few simple things, there was still a lot of trial and error (and undoing).

And one of the larger projects I had at work this week involved Illustrator. The design itself was relatively simple, so I didn't think we would need to hire a professional designer (famous last words, eh?).

Well, I uploaded the final artwork to the production company yesterday and got a "Please call us first thing in the morning" message from them last night. Turns out that, while the design itself was fine, I hadn't integrated all the files the way the printer needs them. (Just how DOES one convert text to "outlines"?) It was easily solved by uploading a couple of extra files.

I need to be patient and keep on plugging away. I just don't like this in-between stage of "OMG, I totally suck!" I am, however, looking forward to feeling like I rock.

I'm not ready.

Photo taken by Emily.

I don't think I've ever been so ill-prepared for Christmas.

Our tree isn't up.
The eaves are unlit.
The liquor cabinet is bare.
No sweets have been baked.
There is no stuff for the stockings.
Half the gifts have yet to be bought.
The gee-gaws are still nestled in their bins.
Our annual letter has not been composed.
Our cards have not been written or stamped.
Of the gifts that have been bought, only three have been wrapped.

Reverting to Smoke Signals and Charcoal Scratches on Cave Walls



Cave drawings at Lascaux, France. Source

 I'm thinking of giving up this whole technology thing. Well, not seriously, evidently, because I am, at this very moment, writing a blog post.

If we are Facebook friends, then you already know that I've suffered a technological crash and burn recently. My two-year-old laptop's LCD screen suffered a catastrophic failure and gave me the white screen of death. Yup: white screen. I had no idea such a thing existed until it happened to me.

[Allow me to point out that that is a hardware error, so really it is not a case of my using "weird keystrokes" or otherwise abusing the machine. Unless you count slamming it shut in frustration when trying to navigate a government website. But EVERYONE does that! I DO NOT have anger-management issues!]

This is only the latest in a seemingly unending string of disasters with laptops (and the occasional desktop or Kindle). Frankly, I've lost count, and I really don't want to look up my notes to find out what my current status is.

Anyway, I've been using Steve's netbook, but we got a scare yesterday when it wouldn't boot for me, which is why I have a new laptop today.

You might think that, by now, I'd be used to the process of integrating a new computer, but let me tell you, I am SICK OF IT!

Registering this, that and the other thing, customizing applications, restoring backed-up files, activating my antivirus/spyware program without having to pay through the nose for a second license, getting used to the slightly different keyboard layout [this one has a "\" or « key where the Shift key should be] and a new operating system.

And Microsoft Outlook NEVER works with Outlook Connector. All it will show me is my oldest Inbox message ... from last May!

And this new bilingual keyboard won't allow me to switch to English - Canada. And now my quotation mark has vanished! Where the hell are my quotation marks!É Aaaah! And my question mark! ^^ And my square brackets! (And I have my keyboard set to English - US.)

*Breathe in... Exhaaaaaale... Breathe in... Exhaaaaaale.*
*Take a glug of wine.*

Those asterisks will have to take the place of square brackets AND less-than or greater-than symbols.

[Aha! The square bracket has been restored to me! ? And the question mark! And the /! And the quotation mark: "!

[Breathe in... Exhaaaaaale... Breathe in... Exhaaaaaale.]

And, wait. Outlook has awakened and restored unto me the wealth of e-mails which I had entrusted to its care. [Angels sing, harp music swells.]

On that optimistic note [Yippeee! I've got e-mail!], I will spare you the saga of my accidentally purchasing a laptop without a CD/DVD drive (only discovered AFTER I had restored all of my files, of course), and of forgetting my receipt when I went to exchange it. Well, I guess I didn't really spare you, I just sort of condensed it.

For his part, Stephen has already deleted my user account on his little netbook. Couldn't do so fast enough, it seems. The fact that he allowed me to use it for seven entire days just shows you how very much he loves me.

I leave you on that note, while I go to do battle with that monolithic beast that goes by the name of Norton.

A Quiz!

Question: What is worse than spending a morning at the Department of Motor Vehicles (a.k.a. the ServiceOntario office)?
.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Answer: Having a gastric attack after waiting in line and finally reaching the counter. And there being no restrooms on-site. And leaving without what you came for.

First a little background: [TMI alert! Quit reading NOW if bodily functions turn your stomach.]

According to my gastroenterologist, I have "microscopic" colitis - intestinal inflammation that shows up only under the microscope and results in chronic diarrhea, cramping and other unseemly afflictions. It's not severe, and is mostly well controlled by diet, but every so often it catches me off-guard -- and when it does, it can happen very suddenly. My biggest fear, like anyone else with chronic gastric trouble, is having an "accident" in public, which has never happened to me. I learned, early on, that when I'm having one of "those days" I don't dare even try to fart unless I am on a working toilet. And, like most people with this kind of disorder, I've become quite adept at scouting out restroom locations whenever I enter a public place.

(One of the fringe benefits of my last job was that our office was right beside the women's restroom!)

But, oh, there have been close calls, one of the most memorable being when I was directed to restrooms only to find that they were closed for renovations! I couldn't even bust in and disturb the cleaning staff - the plumbing was not connected.

So there I was this morning, trying to clear up one of the last pieces of bureaucracy from our move - registering our vehicles and getting plates for them. When Brian and I arrived at the office, there were six people in front of us. Not bad!

But as the minutes wore on, I gradually felt something building. The line moved slowly. The wave of urgency abated. I marked a doorway near the back of the room that I hoped might lead to a restroom, though there was no signage to indicate so. The line moved. The gastric wave began to crest again. I debated whether I should give up my spot in line and make a dash for the restroom. I was first in line. Dammit, I would just have to exercise that sphincter! I breathed. The wave abated.

About an hour into it, I finally made it to the counter. The efficient clerk flipped through the kazillion papers I'd brought with me. We were missing one form. And, for some reason, the van is registered in Steve's name only, so I couldn't register that today.

Fine, I thought, just tell me what I need (and let me go find a toilet). She had to go consult a colleague to get the final answer. She left.

Tick. Spasm. Tick. Clench. Tick.

I asked the adjacent clerk if there was a bathroom I could use. "No. Sorry." (But not really sorry, sort of a happy, isn't-that-funny sorry.) Right. When was the last time an office was built without at least a staff washroom?

Finally, my clerk came back. I leaned over the counter and whispered, "Excuse me. I'm having a gastric attack. I really need to go to the bathroom! Is there a restroom I could use?" I gave her a desperate "sh** will start flowing soon if you don't help me" glare.

She stuck to the story that the office had no toilets. Instead, she directed me to a skivey restaurant a couple of doors down. Sensing my desperation, she told me to go ahead and come back to the front of the line when I was ready.

I skedaddled to the restaurant, leaving Brian standing in limbo. I ignored the "customers only" sign on the women's room door, praised God that it was unoccupied, turned a blind eye to the decades of grime that caked the door, floors and walls, and found sweet relief.

When I got back to the ServiceOntario office, I waited just a couple of minutes while the clerk dealt with her current customer, then she told me which forms I still needed.

So I survived, but still have to come back some other day. Because evidently this isn't enough paperwork to get plates in Ontario:

How much is the stress worth?

Steve likes to say that the extra pay you get with career advancements is for the extra stress that comes with the greater job responsibilities. I'm inclined to agree.

I've been blessed to have a relatively stress-free job for the past four years, for the most part. There have been periods where the work load was heavy or the responsibilities were daunting, but those were sporadic. And, if I'm honest, they were the periods I enjoyed the most! I've found it far more grinding - and harder to get up on Monday mornings - when the days are slow and predictable.

As I've been idly scouring the Ottawa job market for communicators, I've been tossing around the question of how much responsibility (read, "stress") do I want? Part of me likes the idea of applying for "writer" or "communications officer" positions, which are below my qualifications but would be jobs that I could do with little or no stress. Another part of me looks at the more senior positions and thinks, "I could do that!" and relishes the challenge.

Which brings me to the question of "good stress" versus "bad stress." I happen to believe that some kinds of stress are actually productive and can be energizing. A 2004 article at management-issues.com supports this, in terms of your immune system. The article states that short bursts of stress can actually help your immune system.

"But long-term stress such as an injury or trauma that caused permanent or life-changing damage, such as having a long term disability, losing a partner or spouse or being abused as a child, appeared to wear out the immune system, leaving people more prone to infections." Read the article here.

Another site says,

"Positive stress--known as eustress--is what helps you write your best report, ace your tennis game and deepen your relationships." It goes on to say, "You don't have to eliminate stress so much as manage it--to determine the level that's optimal for you."Read the article here.

I guess "eustress" is what I'm looking for. I liken it to "hypomania" - that condition where you aren't truly out-of-control manic, but you're full of energy and enthusiasm. And I think, for me, that means I need a challenge. But I'll also need to learn how to manage that stress.

What are your tips for managing stress? What would you choose: higher stress or lower stress? Will choosing more stress just send me to an early grave? Share your thoughts.