Rain! Work issues, sleep issues

The weather service is predicting snow and ice for us here in Amarillo Thursday morning. That ought to delight Mama. I am pretty sure by the time she gets up and going that it will have cleared up but that is way too hard to forecast. For the first time since I have been paying attention there is also a 90% chance of rain forecast for tomorrow. That is almost unheard of here on the high plains. Praise the Lord! For those of you who are not nearly as interested in rain, it is a real blessing for us.


Bowie has a 50-60% chance of rain over the next several days and Grandpa told me last night that we may need to get some cattle to start eating down the pasture; the grass is really taking off! That is an answer to prayer for us. Tanks are filling up and the grass is growing, just like it is supposed to when there is sufficient rain. Maybe the hurricane in the Gulf is pulling this wetness down on us, but whatever it is we thank the Lord.

I have to drive to Guymon, OK today for a going away lunch for one of my peers. He has been a great help to me and I am sorry to see him go. His daughter has a medical condition that requires more help than he is able to get in Guymon – where they have been living – so relocation to Houston is a tremendous blessing to him.

I go through my goals review with my new boss today. I am a little nervous about it, not because I am not a good performer, but because the things I do are rarely ever noticed – until they are not done. The less I am noticed, the better job I am doing. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in his mind. I know I will not get a promotion while I stay in this job since I am already at the top of the range for this position, but a good raise would be appreciated.

I also have to fuss at one of my direct reports about her bad conduct. Of course, it all came to light after too long a period of time; after it had gone on too long and feelings were raw. But that is the way things usually happen. Most of us will suffer through bad experiences until we blow up when the situation could have been resolved much sooner. Dealing with these things in my group is one of the blessings of management.

I have been taught that it is better to have a good group of individuals working together than an exceptional group of individuals that cannot get along. Creating a hostile working environment is never productive regardless of the amount of output from a given group. Having good or average people work together is very often more productive that having great people fight each other. And it is my job to make sure everyone gets along so the work can get done.

Mama and I need to get our bed back. We are sleeping on a couple of twin mattresses as we look for a bed frame to put our king size bed on. We had to give up our sleigh bed because it is just too big to fit in the small bedroom at the Jennie house and I would like to find a way to have some storage under the bed if possible. For the moment it looks line we will have to go with a regular metal frame because everything else is far too expensive. She was awake as I left this morning and had been since about 2 a.m. I have to deal with that before the “unhappy” hits.

The song lyrics, when Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, is very true.