weening and winning

And so it begins. I am officially on vacation. For three lazy days I get to sleep in - well past the exceedingly normal 4am. I get to paint all the trim I want and I get to wake up those miniature men using the tiny dog to walk on their heads. My love and I will stay up late talking about things only we understand and playfully order each other around in true Gordon Ramsey fashion. We’re in the shit, yes?

One thing though, I am having difficulty weening myself off of the smackberry. I woke up with thoughts of D’s spreadsheets and replies from advertising dancing in my head. The latter is one of the most significant coups in my five years with X. The thought of their responses from my email late yesterday had me positively giddy. In those five years I have had an unnatural desire to take our current, crap-infused catalog that boast over 300 products, bugs, dot-whacks and mandatories to a place that might actually give our organization a “leg up”. And I men that literally. For this group, “leg up” does NOT mean an advantage over the competition. No, to us it is the physical manifestation of deep pride in other peoples accomplishments.

I have long been an admirer of the talent-swell among the design team. A recent discovery of the well-hidden treasure in our copy department has me over the moon. To say nothing of the disciplined, mother-like care from production. Year after year, I have been hopeful to put an end to the tragedy that keeps these talents tucked away and at times drained of passion and life for the sake of tummy-meters and time constraints. Having experience compromise after disappointment in presenting our baby (the X brand that we have in our hearts and minds) to the X community - my faith that our most recent (and thorough, I might add) proposal to redesign the crapolog would have the same fate was - certain death. I have never been more certain that these people are well-equipped, nerves and all to take on the daunting, if not dubious and potentially X-changing project but the odds have been traditionally against us.

Then there’s God. It appears he has decided to give us a go. He chose this rather unassuming guy to be the pitchman and influence a brand spanking new outcome. That same guy, having a real good sense about what matters to people, had the good sense to ring me up and tell me that “we’re on”. It felt a lot like having our work chosen for world-wide recognition. The kind of recognition where you don’t have to give speeches and nobody knows what you look like or how to reach you. They just know your names and that you do what you say and you say what you do - and you do it really, really well. But I digress. After he promised that he wasn’t yanking my chain, I sent the team an email chock full of my excitement and waited.... After an hour of no responses I realized I sent the note after hours and would have to wait until morning to hear their replies.

So I snuck downstairs at 9:30am and peered around the corner hopeful of seeing that blinking, red, dingleberry light indicating new messages and I got nervous. What if i misjudged THEIR enthusiasm? What if it is really ME that desires to show off their gifts? What if gobs of women who dig gifts and dig God will miss out on the chance for a real live exchange between us? Alas the red light beckoned and I breathed ready to face the answers to those questions.

I stole away to the garage, feeling a bit sneaky to view the responses. It is best summed up by this one “Is it okay to be excited and a little scared at the same time?”. Admittedly I share that sentiment.

God, you are giving us a shot for your purposes. Thank you for trusting us - we don’t come close to deserving it. Be with us every second and direct our every move and word spoken. Protect us from the waiting obstacle and bring to us the ones you have chosen to help...quickly. In Jesus name, amen.