Where I work, what I do

I started a new job on May 1, and I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to tell you how that’s going. So I thought I’d use today’s post to catch you up.

I am a public information specialist for a local government, Campbell County. I am the assistant to our public information officer. I work in Rustburg, the county seat, in the Haberer Building.

The building I work in.

I am enjoying my job and am happy for the transition from the newspaper job to what I’m doing now.

I do a lot of different things, but here are a few:

·         Update the county website

·         Update the employee portal (intranet)

·         Make graphics for the website and portal

·         Write public service announcements and media advisories and send them to local media

·         Interact with local media and find information for them

·         Help in responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests

·         I do a lot of editing

·         Take photos at county functions

·         Help with making presentations, crafting messages

·         Update the Public Safety Facebook and Twitter accounts

·         Lead the Web Content Authors group (those in other departments who update their pages on the website)

We are in the midst of transferring to another web platform for the county website. It will be so much better than what we have now. Right now, some people in other departments update their pages on the website. Once the changeover occurs, I will be doing the bulk of web updates.

I do a lot of writing, communicating, and creating with this job, and there is a lot of variety to each day. So I am enjoying it.

A view of some of the Campbell County buildings in the government complex.

I’m in the county administration office with my supervisor, the county administrator and his assistant, the clerk of the Board of Supervisors, the staff attorney, and the director and the assistant director of Public Works and their assistant. It’s a good group of hard-working and dedicated public servants.

I don’t miss the newspaper at all. I’m working full time where I am now, but the hours are regular and I rarely have to work nights or weekends. I work 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., so I’m home by 5:30 most evenings, which is hugely important to me. I don’t feel like I have to constantly be tuned into what’s going on around me in case there’s a story I need to cover. That is so good for my anxiety.

I feel very fortunate to have such a wonderful supervisor and to be doing work that I enjoy.

Friends, what has been your favorite job? Or do you think it’s still in your future?

Back to blogging, back to my friends

Hello, friends! It has been many months since I’ve been in this space. A short time away turned into a longer period than I thought it would be. Many times I thought about starting back, but I have finally reached the point when the time seems “right.”

I have missed you and your comments. I have missed reading your blogs. I am looking forward to catching up as much as I can.

I have so much to tell you. I hardly know where to begin. The last six months have been busy, with happy parts, heartbreaking parts, and just-glad-to-be-here parts. I have stories about my animals, my new job, my new volunteer work, my health, and my life to share with you.

If I tried to tell it all in one post, it would be so long, I doubt you would be able to get through all of it awake.

So today I will leave you with this: I am still here. I am still living with OCD and depression. I am still forging ahead despite that. And I’m in a pretty good place.

I’ll be back on Wednesday.

Choices: A good thing

This is a view of the main road through Rustburg in December 2013, before the start of the Christmas Parade.

How quickly things can change! I told you on Monday that I had accepted a job with the town of Altavista. Things changed later that day.

I received a phone call about the job I had applied for and interviewed for with Campbell County. I was offered the job, and I accepted without hesitation. I will begin the job as public information specialist on May 1. I will be working in the county seat, Rustburg, which is about 20-25 minutes from my house.

Though I was glad to have gotten the job with the town, I had been having some “gut” feelings that I may not be going in the right direction.

I was afraid that I would receive an offer from the county. To me, it would just complicate things because I would have to make a choice.

Now I realize that having the choice was a good thing.

I realized that I would regret turning down the county job. And the job description? Well, it’s like it was written with someone like me in mind. It includes a lot of my favorite things to do: writing, designing brochures, updating websites, helping others with content management, providing information to the public about county issues, etc.

And I know many of the people I will be working with because I’ve covered county government for the newspaper for five and a half years. They’re good people that I have a lot of respect for.

I knew when I said yes to the job that it was the right decision. Even though I don’t start the job for another month, I am looking forward to it!

It is a full time job. But I won’t be writing nearly as much as I do now on the job, and I am determined to carve out time for my own writing. Lots of writers have to do that.

I have not applied for any other jobs. I am satisfied with what I’ve done and am looking forward to the future. My last day with the newspaper will now be April 17. I am taking a couple of weeks off to decompress.

Thank you all for your support through this very anxious time of looking for another job and another challenge. You have helped me get through this.

Now I really do feel like I can let go of the anxiety and just be for a while.

Finally

A photo of Broad Street in Altavista. I think I took this on a Sunday a couple of years ago. I was standing at the library looking down the street. English Park is in the distance, as is the Staunton River. To get to Town Hall, where I'll be working, you would turn left at that first traffic light in the photo.

I can finally share some news with you.

On Jan. 6, I applied for a job with the town of Altavista. It’s a part-time position as an economic development assistant that includes coordinating the Main Street Program.

Last Wednesday, I finally got a formal offer.

I will coordinate a nonprofit group that carries out the concepts of the VirginiaMain Street Program. I will also assist the town’s economic developer in meeting the needs of existing businesses and helping to bring new businesses in. The economic developer wants me to work specifically with younger, creative entrepreneurs.

I’m excited and nervous. I am looking forward to a new challenge, learning new things, getting training, and being in a position to serve and encourage others.

I will work fewer hours and far more regular hours than my current job with the paper, but I will make significantly more in salary.

So why am I nervous? Change is unsettling to all of us, and it tends to raise my anxiety level. I also have the new-job-worries: Will I be able to learn? Will I do a good job?

I’ve always managed in the past, and when I remember that, I have more confidence in my ability to do another job.

Another worry has been that I’m leaving a job where I (finally) was able to write for a living.

What I found was that while my writing improved and I learned to write faster, I wasn’t always writing what I wanted to—that just wasn’t my job. And writing all day/all week took a certain kind of energy out of me.

I am not leaving my writing behind. I am a writer at heart. I hope to actually start writing more of what speaks to me and I’m passionate about. And the new job will afford me the opportunity to use some of my other skills.

My last day with the paper will be April 8 and my first day on the new job will be April 13. It will be a busy time at the paper, trying to finish things up and leave information behind that will help my co-workers.

I wish I could say my worrying of the last three months is over. But I complicated things by applying for another job while I was waiting to hear about the town job. I’ve had two interviews and am waiting to hear about it. So I may be faced with another decision soon.

To choose between two good job opportunities is not easy for me. In true OCD fashion, I tend to want to find the “perfect” answer, make the “right” choice. Of course, we never know at the time of making a decision whether or not it is the right choice. And there is no perfect answer.

For now, I’m going to enjoy what I do have: an upcoming new job and a new adventure.

Open for business

Tina F. Barbour Editing Services LLC is open for business.

I decided in 2013 to explore starting my own freelance editing business. It took a lot of research and preparation before I was ready to say, I’m going to do it.

I started with lists of things to consider. In a notebook I bought for the planning, I made my first list on April 21, 2013. I didn’t make my next one until November 3, 2013.

Why the delay?

Probably fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure.

This past fall, the desire to edit for others and to own my own business outweighed the fear, and I started making lists with more purpose.

Discuss structure/taxes with CPA. Check.

Settle on name of business. Check.

Discuss structure with attorney. Check.

Write a business plan. Check.

Decide what services to offer. Check.

Begin stocking my reference library. Check.

The only real headache in all this was when I applied for a business license from my town. I learned that I first had to register my business name with the county circuit court.

I went to the court. They weren’t sure if I had to register and sent me to the commissioner of revenue. They said, yes, I had to register, assisted me with the paperwork, and sent me back to the circuit court.

Then it was back to town hall for the business license.

But all is in order now.

A second headache is developing a business website, which I’m still in the process of doing. I hope to have that up and running very soon.

In the meantime, here are the services that I will offer:

I provide editing and proofreading services to writers working on a variety of manuscripts and copy, including blog posts, other Web works, nonfiction books, nonfiction periodical articles, essays, business writing (articles, Web copy, and newsletters), medical and scientific articles/copy for the lay person, and government agency copy.

I provide the following types of copyediting:

Mechanical editing: Reviewing and making corrections in consistent use of style, capitalization, spelling, use of hyphens, abbreviations, punctuation, numbers, grammar, syntax, word choice, consistent use of names, and consistent use of documentation.

Substantive editing: Includes mechanical editing. Also includes reviewing and suggesting changes in structure, organization of content, paragraphing, clarity of the content, audience consideration, and obvious factual errors.

I also provide proofreading services:

Proofreading: The last phase of editing a manuscript. Usually done by comparing proofs with last edited copy, reviewing for and correcting typographical errors, spacing, inaccurate punctuation marks, consistency in font and point size, page numbers, missing words, accurate hyperlinks, and accurate indexes.

I’m excited about this new adventure! If you have any questions about my services, please contact me through this website or by emailing TinaFBarbourEditing(at)gmail(dot)com.

Have you ever had your own business? If you could have any kind of business, what would it be?

A few, small steps

"Gold, Green, Red"

I spent part of this past weekend working on a project that I’ve been thinking about and talking about for a while but not making much progress on.

That project is my desire to start a freelance editing business.

When I pulled out the notebook I had dedicated to this project, I was appalled to see that my last notes were dated April 21 of this year.

That means that for over six months, all I’ve done is think about the project. And the thinking has been sporadic.

I want to start such a business for different reasons. I’d like to earn extra income. I’d like to eventually be completely self-employed and not dependent on an employer. I’d like to do something that fits closely with what I love doing the most.

What I love doing the most is writing. But I’m not looking to become a freelance writer, at least not in the sense of getting assignments to write articles for magazines.

I want to write about things that I’m passionate about and interested in. I’ll always do that, whether I have a traditional job or am self-employed.

That kind of writing, even if I get published, doesn’t always translate into money. And I do need to make some money.

Second to creating the words, I love editing the words of others.

I love the challenge of smoothing out writing, making it consistent in style, organization, punctuation, grammar, spelling, while keeping the writer’s voice in place.

I love the power of words and helping others find just the right ones to convey their meaning.

I love weeding through words, finding the ones that have to be cut to fit a certain word limit, again, keeping the writer’s voice the same.

When I edit, I lose track of time, become totally absorbed in the task at hand.

So why have I held back on moving forward with my business idea?

Procrastination, depression, perfectionism, fear—the same things that dog me in other areas of my life.

I think they’re all tied together. When you’re depressed, you may lack motivation to do much of anything. It just seems too exhausting and useless.

The OCD is a party to all this, too. It’s easy to fall into the trap of obsessing about not doing things perfectly, of making a mistake like not filing taxes correctly, not doing a good enough job at the work, not being able to do the work.

Even with the treatment I have received, even with the improvements I’ve experienced in both depression and OCD this year, they both still have their influences.

But can I edit? Yes. Can I do a good job? Yes. Can I provide a service to others? Yes.

I found that just taking a few, small steps helped. I did some research. Reviewed some information about starting a business in Virginia. Learned some things that made me feel better.

And I decided that the best step to take at this point was to set up an appointment with the certified public accountant that does out taxes and have a talk about the requirements for setting up a sole proprietorship in Virginia. Why worry about what I didn’t know when I had a source of information to begin with?

So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll call this week and try to set up an appointment as soon as he’s available.

And I’ll keep taking the small steps that I need to take until I am ready to start my business.

What project have you been working on lately?

A Tuesday in the life of a small town reporter

I’m writing this late on Tuesday night.

Tuesdays are my long days at work. We’re a weekly paper, the Altavista Journal, and we come out each Wednesday. So we’re due at press Tuesday nights.

My mind is still on work, so I thought I’d share a look at what a Tuesday is like for this small town reporter.

I took this photo of my desk at work one day. Notice the bottles. I get thirsty!

*I arrived at work a little before 10:00 a.m., late morning because I knew it would be a late night. I had already written my stories for this week—three bylined stories (stories that show I wrote them) and three briefs (stories with no bylines, usually rewrites of news releases).

*I checked my email, looking for a news release from the Virginia State Police. I had heard about a fatal crash in the county overnight. Because I hadn’t received an email, I sent one to the communications contact with the VSP in Richmond asking for information.

*Our news staff is made up of our editor and two staff writers, who are me and another reporter. The news editor at one of our sister papers used to work for the Journal, and he still helps with layout on Tuesdays.

*The four of us met with the advertising manager at about 10:30 to decide how many pages to include in this week’s issue. A lot depends on the number of ads and the amount of copy we have.

*Once that’s decided, the news staff figures out what goes on each page. Page one is especially important, and deciding what goes there can take a lot of discussion.

*We finished up our meeting around 11:30 and all but the editor started laying out pages. We use Adobe InDesign for layout. As we finish up a page, we print them out on large paper and pass them on to the editor to read. After we’ve corrected pages, we change them to PDF format to send to the press. We also print the PDFs to check headlines, dates, etc. one more time. It’s a process that goes on all day.

My work computer showing one of the pages of the paper in InDesign. The photo on the upper right corner of the monitor shows Thunder Cat, who we lost in 2009.

*Larry picked me up for lunch at 12:10 and we ate Mexican.

*I returned to work and continued working on layout.

*At 1:45 I drove 17 miles to Rustburg, our county seat, to cover a 2:30 governmental committee meeting, a 4:00 Board of Supervisors meeting (the Board is the governing body of the county), and public hearings at 5:30.

*I got back to Altavista at 7:00. No one else was in the office: the editor was covering a town council meeting, one reporter was covering a high school volleyball game, and the one that works on Tuesdays only was covering something in his own town.

*I had received a news release from the state police about the fatal wreck, so I wrote that up. I also wrote a story based on the Board of Supervisors meeting.

One of my notebooks. Sometimes I have a hard time reading my own handwriting.

*I put the stories on the pages and worked on readying copy and photos for the website.

*The editor got back at 9:00. He wrote his story, and I put that on the page. Meanwhile, the other reporter returned.

*We worked out some corrections and my co-reporter sent the pages to the press over the Internet via Fetch.

*I got home a little after 11:00. Larry met me at the door, and my kitties fussed at me for being gone all day long. I made over everyone.

And that was a Tuesday in the life of this small town reporter. I don’t have to follow meetings every Tuesday—that usually happens only once a month. On Tuesdays when I’m in the office all day, I also help with editing and proofing.

And the other days of the week on the job? That’s another story!

What has been your favorite job ever?

Visiting the farm

I’ve gone country for this week’s Random 5.

I’m joining in with Nancy of A Rural Journal for Random 5 Friday, where, as Nancy says, “you can share 5 random facts about you, your day, your pets, your kids, whatever!”

Thanks to Nancy for hosting this fun meme!

Note on the photos: I took them in the 1980s with my 35 mm camera. They have faded with time and poor storage, though.

 One

I was a back in Evington on Wednesday. One of Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates for this November’s election was in the county and visited a dairy farm where another politician gave his endorsement.

My editor wrote the story, while I took the photos for the newspaper.

The dairy farmer gave the politicians a tour of his place. It included a walk through a cow lot and a visit to see calves.

I grew up on a farm, and my uncle had a dairy farm nearby. On Wednesday, I smelled things and saw things I haven’t seen in many years. I also picked my way through manure like I haven’t done for a while.

Two

My family lived in a white house with a red tin roof on the farm until I was 10 years old. The farm had been my father’s grandfather’s, then had gone out of the family. My father rented it, and then when he and my mother were first married, they bought it on a five-year note.

It was called Terrace View Farm.

The white farmhouse, my first home,  in a photo taken from the yard of the second house. On the right, you can see the roof of the old red mill across from the white house.

Three

When I was about 5 years old, my father started working for the post office as a rural letter carrier. He kept farming, but eventually, my parents decided to sell part of the farm, along with the house, to make it easier on him.

They built a new house, a brick ranch, in sight of the white farmhouse, and we moved there in 1973, when I was 10.

My parents sold the rest of the farm and the brick house in 1989.

The lower pasture below the brick house. This was a good place to go sledding when we got a good snow.

 Four

Once we moved, my father limited his farming to raising beef cows, Black Angus. But when he was farming full time, he also had milk cows, pigs and chickens, and he raised tobacco as a main crop. My mother made butter and sold it and eggs.

Farming can be a 24 hour/7 day a week endeavor. It’s hard work. I was reminded of that as I toured the dairy farm Wednesday and heard about all the tasks that needed to be done to get the milking done and take care of the animals.

The stable at the second house. The wood was for the woodstove that my parents had in the house.

 Five

My father built the stable and tractor shed at the second home. I put my footprint in the footing of the stable. I wonder if it’s still there?

Old barns and sheds have a smell that takes me right back to childhood. It’s a mix of musty and dusty scents with some oil from the tractor thrown in. I smelled some of those scents on Wednesday.

Community

The road from Altavista to Evington is a narrow, sometimes very curvy two-lane highway, 10 miles of country road.

For a long time, I was never actually sure when I’d arrived in Evington. It’s more of a zip code than a defined place. But the longer I live in this part of the county, the more defined it becomes.

I visited Evington Monday evening to cover a community meeting for the newspaper. One of my regular beats is county government, and one of the issues facing government is how to help people in the county who are experiencing well water problems.

The county has come up with some options to consider, and the meeting was to get some early feedback from residents who would be affected by any decision made.

I’ve already done several stories on the issue, and I looked forward to attending this meeting.

But it wasn’t just the meeting that drew me. Part of the reason I looked forward to going to Evington was because I enjoy the drive.

I was behind the wheel Monday night, so I couldn’t take many photos.

But I noticed the hay and corn fields, the way the land rolled along in hill after hill.

I noticed the round bales of hay out in the field or, in one place, lined up beside the barbed wire fence that ran parallel to the road. I thought of my fellow bloggers who are busy raking and baling hay.

I noticed how the early evening sunshine still lit most of the fields, while the trees at the edges were growing darker green as the light faded.

I arrived at the intersection where the Evington post office is and turned left. That’s where the road becomes very curvy, almost turning on itself as it weaves down to the railroad crossing. 

Then I was at the building where the meeting was held.

Field in Evington, Virginia

I was there for over an hour and a half, but the time flew by. I listened to people express their concerns, for themselves and their neighbors. I saw people from all walks of life, from different backgrounds, discuss common concerns.

I felt community.

One of the blessings of my job is the way I have become more of a part of the community. I’ve met people I never would have met, chatted about the mundane, asked questions about the serious, struggled to capture the essence of a story for the readers.

I’m an introvert. I tend to shy away from anything resembling a crowd. I have depression that sometimes makes me question my reason for living.

But times like Monday night remind me that I’m part of a community—really, more than one community—and part of my purpose lies in those communities. That’s a comfort.

It was a comfort, too, to step outside at the end and look at the beautiful land around me becoming dark. I caught a photo of the red rail car that sits beside the long graveled driveway and then drove back along the same narrow roads. I couldn’t see the fields as clearly, but I knew they were there. I knew the people working hard behind those fields were there, somewhere.

And I went home.

OCD, teaching and the fear of grading papers

It was one of the scariest days of my life.

It was my first day of teaching English. I was 22 years old, and I had a classroom full of 18-year-old college freshmen looking at me. I had to do something.

I followed the script I had carefully worked out before class. I could barely speak, but I managed to call out the names on my class roster. I made a pen mark beside each name.

But I was so nervous that I had to slide my arm along the desktop as I made the pen marks down the list. If I had lifted my arm, everyone would have seen how badly I was shaking.

As scary as that day was, the scarier times were soon to come, when I had to start grading papers.

I was in the first year of my master’s program in English at Bowling Green State University. I was teaching composition classes, where I reviewed the basics like sentence structure and paragraphing.

It stands to reason that if you’re teaching writing, the students have to practice it. And if they practice it, the teacher has to read it. And evaluate it.

That triggered my obsessive-compulsive disorder, especially my checking.

I was obsessed with fears of not reading each essay completely and fairly. I was afraid that I would miss something important or judge the paper unfairly.

So I compulsively read and reread each essay. I painstakingly wrote long comments explaining my critiques. I reread my comments and rewrote them when necessary, using liquid eraser fluid to cover the changes.

If I completed grading one 500-word essay in 30 minutes, I was making good progress. It took me hours to review and grade 20 to 25 papers.

This fear and this ritual continued as I taught English for four years while in school, and then for about two and a half years after I left school.

Even though during that time I started treatment for OCD in the form of medication, which tremendously helped my obsessions and compulsions, it could never wipe out the reading and checking OCD related to grading papers.

How this expression of OCD would have benefited from Exposure and Response Therapy.

I can just imagine how I could have “exposed” myself to a student essay, to read once, then again as I made comments. Then I would have worked to prevent my compulsion to do the whole thing over and over again. I would have worked at living with the anxiety of not checking each essay “just one more time.”

I enjoyed much about teaching: the interaction with the students, the joy of seeing them learn and practice new concepts and reach their goals. But memories of the joys of teaching are overshadowed by the memories of the fear I had of grading papers.

Have you ever had a job or volunteer task that caused you a lot of anxiety? What did you do about it?

Making a decision, making a change

I made my decision.

I was faced with making a big decision, which I wrote about last week in a post about OCD and making decisions.

I am making a change in my work life.

Starting this week, I am lowering my work hours to 32 hours per week.

It may not seem like a big change, but for me, it’s huge.

As you may remember, I work as a newspaper reporter. My main beats are county government, the sheriff’s office and the courts.

I write about activities in local government, crimes when they occur, and the outcomes of some of those crimes in court.

Some of my days are very long, especially Tuesdays when we lay out the paper, which I also assist with.

If I have meetings in the evenings, it also makes for a long day.

Sometimes I feel like I miss the entire day in a blur because I’m wrapped up in making phone calls and conducting interviews, or I’m hunched over my computer writing a story.

I’m away from home more than I like, and I sometimes feel overwhelmed by what I have to do at work and by what I’d like to do at home.

I think this sense of being overwhelmed stems from several things, such as my temperament; my OCD, depression and anxiety; and my energy level.

It’s also affected by the nature of my job. There’s always another deadline looming ahead, another paper to plan for, another interview to conduct, more story ideas to generate. It’s easy to stay in a state of anxiety.

For a while now, I’ve been fighting the job. I’ve had a hard time getting up in the morning to go in to work. I’ve dreaded Mondays. I’ve basically lived for the weekends, and some weekends I have to work.

After I first got the idea for cutting my hours, I talked with my husband, then the newspaper’s publisher, then the editor. Then I thought some more and talked some more and asked more questions.

I prayed. I meditated.

I knew it would mean less money. Not a lot less per week, but it would add up over a year’s time.

Also, I’ve worked full time for many years. Being a full-time worker was part of my identity.

But things worked out. I made my decision. And I’m at peace with it.

Why is this a huge change for me?

It means more time.

I’ll have chunks of days or even whole days free from the confines of the job.

More time to do the writing that I want to do. To do more things at home. To perhaps start an editing business.

More time with Larry.

I hope with the step back, I’ll be able to enjoy my job more.

And I hope that I’ll feel less overwhelmed, more ready to tackle the mental health issues that affect me.

I’m so grateful that I’m able to do this now. I don’t want to take the opportunity for granted.

Have you ever made a change in your work life that had big effects on your life?

A long day with OCD

I couldn’t get enough bars on my phone. How could I do my job? How would I make it through the weekend if I couldn’t get the information I needed now?

Those were the thoughts that I brought along with me as I went through the day on Saturday.

It started early in the morning when my husband told me about a story he saw on the website of the local TV news station: there had been a suspicious death in the county that the sheriff’s office was investigating.

At my newspaper job, I cover the county: the government, courts and the sheriff’s office. I needed to find out what was going on.

So I took a quick shower (quick for me) and jumped in my car to try to find the site of the investigation, hoping there would be officials available to give me a statement.

Some background: One of the things that bothers my obsessive-compulsive disorder the most with my job as a reporter for a weekly newspaper is depending on others to get in touch with me.

I write my stories based in large part on talking with others. Some of that is done by phone. I leave a lot of voice mail messages; I wait for a lot of people to call me back.

I have a hard time waiting for them to call back.

I obsess over whether or not I punched in the correct phone number to call the person. What if I left my voice mail message on the wrong phone for the wrong person? If I’m using my cell phone, I compulsively check the call history to make sure I called the correct number.

When I don’t get a call back right away, I worry that the person never got the message. So I call again, compulsively checking the number again.

Saturday morning, I drove up and down the road where the person who died had lived. I searched for the house, looked for yellow police tape, for sheriff’s office vehicles, for signs of a crime scene. I found none.

I worried that I wasn’t doing due diligence, so I put more miles on my car than was necessary to try to find the scene.

I finally saw a couple of deputies on the side of the road, and they told me to contact the major about the case.

I have regular contact with the major. I tried his office phone first: voice mail. Then I tried his cell phone number, which I had programmed into my phone and written down in my little phone book I carry with me.

It was a wrong number. Now I worried about the accuracy with which I had written down the number in the first place. Maybe he had just changed his number. Maybe I hadn’t been careful enough.

I finally left two messages: one on his office voice mail and one with dispatch. That covered all the bases I had available.

Back home, my husband asked me if I still wanted to go on the outing we had planned for the day. I didn’t expect a call back any time soon, and I had my cell phone with me, so I said yes.

I didn’t realize that during parts of our trip on back roads, I’d have no cell connection. I received notice that I had a voice mail. I thought it was probably from the major, but I couldn’t even call my voice mail system to hear it. No bars.

We finally reached a small city where I could listen to the message. He hadn’t left any numbers for me to call, so I called his office again, then dispatch again and left another message.

I knew then we’d be driving back into areas with no nearby cell phone towers, so I began to obsess over not getting to talk with this man.

What if he tried to reach me again and just got my voice mail? What if he got mad at me and didn’t try again? What if I couldn’t get any information until Monday? Then I wouldn’t be able to get anything on the website. My whole weekend would be ruined if I couldn’t talk with him that day.

So my thinking went.

But I was with my husband, and we were going to a lovely place (which I’ll write about in a future post), and I decided to try to focus on him and what we were doing and not worry about the major.

The thought that I was going to miss out on the story crept in from time to time, but for the most part, I was able to focus on the moment.

My anxiety returned as we drove back to cell service areas. Long story short, I left another message, and the major left a couple of messages, and we played phone tag. I finally got to talk with him.

I learned that the suspicious death was indeed a homicide.

When we got back to Altavista, I went into the office, wrote a short brief and loaded it up on our website.

Then finally I could go home and relax.

I had an anxious day. But, of course, I suffered nothing like the family of the man who had been murdered. God bless him and God be with his family.

Do you ever have days full of anxiety, with one thing after another happening? How do you respond?

Starting to believe in new possibilities

This has been a weekend where things I’ve experienced and things I’ve read have given me new hope and a new sense of positive possibilities.

As I wrote about in my last post, my therapist gave me my first cognitive behavioral therapy assignment on Friday. It was to sit down at my computer at 8 a.m. yesterday and write for a cumulative 30 minutes. I was not allowed to edit or check my writing.

I did it. I sat down at 8 and started writing. A lot of it was freewriting, where I just typed without thinking. Out of that grew some ideas for my memoir, things that I will explore more in the future.

I took two minutes to operate my coffee machine and make myself a cup of tea, so I actually stopped writing at 8:32.

It was strange sitting down to write with no real preparation or rituals. I literally got out of bed a little before 8, went to the bathroom, started the coffee machine, started up the computer, and started writing.

It was hard not to stop and make corrections or read over what I had written. Usually I stop frequently and read over what I’ve written so far, making changes as I go along.

This exercise was supposed to push through the avoidance that I bring to my writing.

I rated my anxiety at a 6 or 7 during the exercise. Some of it was related to the non-editing; some of it seemed more generalized.

I rated my anxiety at a 7 when I was done. After that, for the next two hours, it was not more than a 3 or 4.

It wasn’t so hard, so I’m thinking that maybe it wasn’t hard enough. But I sure did feel good after it was over. Part of that came from the fact that I got myself out of bed to do it. And I realized that I could keep on doing it when I wanted and deal with the anxiety as it came.

I plan to set a schedule for doing my own writing. I know sometimes those of us with OCD get wrapped up in schedules so much that we tend to ritualize it too much. But I believe I need the self-discipline. And I am starting to believe what my therapist told me on Friday: motivation comes after action, not before it.

I read a lot yesterday and today. I almost finished “Brain Lock” today, and the chapters on revaluing, on the four steps and freedom and on OCD and family really hit home with me.

I gained a new understanding about the freedom to move forward that treatment can bring me as I get better. I began to think about how I can begin to accomplish so much more and be a person who reaches out and helps others more rather than one who sometimes hides from connections and responsibilities.

I’ll explore these thoughts in future posts.

And one more thing happened this weekend that gave me hope.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not trying to toot my own horn. I want to share how I was given a whole new perspective on my work.

A while back, I wrote a post about my job and how I feared it wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing. I have been feeling bored and at loose ends on the job, and I hate feeling like that. I need to feel that I’m making a positive difference.

On Friday, I received an email from one of the officials that I often turn to as a source for my stories covering county government. It was a surprise, because this official is not a “touchy-feely” kind of person.

He told me he thought I did an excellent job on an article I wrote about the county’s budget concerns for this week’s paper. He wrote that I had “the ability to report very complex issues in an understandable manner.” And he noted “the community service that you provide.”

I almost wept when I read it. Maybe I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing by continuing to work for the newspaper. Maybe I am providing a service. Maybe my work has meaning. Maybe all of my writing can have meaning and help others.

The possibilities, I think, are endless.