Good morning all.  I woke up in a very strange mood…Some mornings I awake with this whole “whoaaaa” of all I have been through in the past few months.  And here I still stand, some days a little bent, but not broken.

I have been irritated by all the whole think pink overload of October as you know.  As a new breast cancer survivor it is not only overwhelming some days, but being who I am, I hate the hokey aspect of pink plastic crap.   I did have a good giggle last night when a couple of friends said the pink Wheat Thins boxes look like boxes of tampons.

I decided WTF and picked the Lifetime production “Five” off the On-Demand menu on TV.  I am going to tell you I was pleasantly surprised.  It was  also surprisingly realistic.  It is five short films woven around one common character and that is all I am going to tell you.  But it hits on many of the notes of emotion you can experience as a woman diagnosed with breast cancer.  Watch it. Yes, it’s a made for T.V. movie, but I liked it.

So here I am a survivor and it’s in my hands how good my life is going forward.   Not only staying healthy, but learning to manage stress better.  Yes, in this economy I am really fortunate to have a job, but I have been where I have been a few years, and although I have never been a job hopper, I know this job is all wrong for me because it creates a lot of layers of stress bordering on abusive not found in other industries.   I want to be somewhere which values me and my skill sets, and around people who enjoy what they are doing.  Maybe that sounds crazy, but I know it has to happen.  I also want to work somewhere that has more normalcy (whether a large, small, or medium-sized company) to it with the office structure – and actually has things like vacation and sick days I can earn and accrue,  and not worry about having to make up every minute taken because there are no vacation and sick days.  (Let me tell you, having to worry about that all the time adds to stress.)

Some people think I am crazy for putting these things out on a blog, but I think it is important to talk about.   Women and stress in the workplace is very, very real. We act like superwomen some days, but the reality is we are only human.

I am fortunate to have an amazing support system, and I know God never gives you more than you can handle even if it feels that way some days.  No, I could not do this without my family, sweet man who is my family too, and friends.

That’s it for me.

 Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;
they are the charming gardeners
who make our souls blossom.

~Marcel Proust