Lizzie - Short Fiction Piece

The unpredictably smooth rhythm of the rain against the windowpane had effectively lulled the child curled in her lap to sleep as Nancy stared out into the dark barrenness framed by solid oak. Graceful shielding fingers lightly stroked the little girl's soft brown curls. The surge of protective emotion almost overwhelming Nancy as she clung to the small life in her lap. The heat of the fire blazing in the hearth nearby did nothing to warm Nancy as her mind tumbled over the chilling events of the day.

The day had dawned fresh and lovely, sun shimmering in an azure sky, complete with a smattering of fluffy white clouds. A perfect day for a trip to the park. Elizabeth, or Lizzie, as Nancy called her, would play on the swings, run about in the healthy air, feed the ducks, and have a long talk with her favorite, Mr. Daffy. She would smile with the joy and wonder reserved for the young. Watching Lizzie look at the world with her fresh innocence always served to set Nancy's usually plain face with a bright and almost beautiful glow. She smiled, remembering the look of pure adulation on Lizzie's cherubic face when Nancy announced the day's outing. The girl danced about for a good ten minutes giggling and chattering about the things they would see and do. She then had hurried upstairs to dress as Nancy went about the chore of packing up a small lunch for them both and gathering a soft blanket for them to settle on when it came time to eat. Oh, and mustn't forget crackers for Mr. Daffy. Lizzie would be hard pressed to forgive Nancy should she forget that detail in her packing.

Six Months of Mondays...

Ok, so it turns out that I do not like Mondays.  Last week, I took Monday off to deal with some issues revolving around my children.  Not a biggie, I am a state worker so have plenty of time saved up to use.  However, when I arrived on Tuesday my boss made mention of the fact that a large majority of the days that I take off are Mondays.  He even joked that I should just work a shorter week and skip the whole Monday thing all together.

I have a good relationship with my boss, but I took this as one of those "Im not really taking you to task for this, but I am aware so you should be to" sort of comments.  In response I vowed that I would be in on Mondays for the next six months.

What did I get myself into?  Six months is a very long time.  That would be a total of about 24 Mondays, give or take.  Twenty four where did the weekend go and why am I here days.  Torture right?

Well I am here and it is Monday.  Two down and about 23 or so to go.  Wish me luck!!

Great weekend for my girls :) Gotta love that.

One daughter with the game winning 2 RBI sinlge in extra innings with two outs and bases loaded.  The other with an RBI single and a walk, as well as another win.  Summer is comming!  Camping coming up twice in May.  I can already feel the excitement and my level of busy starting to build. 

Really feeling positive about alot of things.

What is Irking me today...

One thing that absolutely drives me crazy, is the seeming uncontrollable need some people have to pass the buck or justify their desire to do nothing to help when asked.  I work in IT for an office of about 200 end users.  Now normally, my day can be pretty boring since if everything works, I have nothing to troubleshoot or fix.  However, every so often, a day like today comes along and I get a bonafide real issue that needs to be looked at.

Now procedure here, is to open a "help desk" ticket for any issues we are unable to fix ourselves.  Then a prgrammer for that will look into it, being they are the "experts" on the stuff they write.  So I open my ticket and the programmer calls me.  We go through some basics, mostly things I had already done before even contacting them, but I understand that procedure is procedure.  As we continued to talk about the issue and what was happening, each time I tried to interject a point or explain what procedures we used, the programmer kept interrupting me mid-sentence to tell me what I had to do.  Finally, after not being able to complete a single sentence in about 5 minutes of conversation, I got a little aggressive.

"If you would just let me finish my sentence, I would tell be able to explain that we already tried that."

He apparently was not pleased with this response from someone as lowly as a support tech, because at that point, the only advise I was given was the generic "have the user reboot the machine and let me know if that works."

The IT blow off.  If all else fails, its not a program issue its a reboot issue.

Well in the end, the programmers information was useless and it wasnt until I spoke with a few other users in the building to see if they too were having the same problem, that we were able to figure out the problem.  Us, the non-programming, actually give a shit people that use the program day to day.

So if we were able to fix it, what is my beef? 

This simple thing.  Take pride in your work and do not be so quick to pass blame or push an issue or problem off on others.  Your attitudes and effort are noticed by the people around you.

And for those other "regular" folk out there.  Believe in yourself and know that any problem at all can be solved with just a bit of stubborness and due dilligence.

Now that I am here...

I am hoping to use this site to hash out storyline ideas, get feedback on completed works and in general, start to network within the business and see what shakes out.

Most of my writing work is fiction based and includes historical and romantic fiction as well as some fantasy and general fiction as well. From time to time you may also fine a poem, but that one will be rare.

Please feel free to comment on anything you find in this blog. Honest critiques of the works included here are also welcome and encouraged.

New Adventures

Hello everyone:

Welcome. This is the first small step in creating an online presence, my own blog, and eventually becoming a published writer. I will be trying to do a bit of writing each day, as well as share the ups and downs of my endeavors into being published.

More to come soon.

Thanks for coming by.
Rebecca Hart