I have the best job in the world.

I can say that from my perspective of being solidly ensconced in middle age, and having worked outside the home for most of my nearly 38 years of marriage.

I was never afraid of hard work, nor did I ever shun boring work. I learned early in life how to keep myself interested in even the most mundane tasks by having little contests with myself—and I’ve had some pretty boring jobs, too.

My first experience as an employee was working for a neighbor who sold dew worms. He would use the same flats you could find at any garden supply store, and when the worms were ready and removed from these flats into cartons for sale, it was my job to scrape those flats clean, using a putty knife.

I was ten at the time, and earned two cents a flat.

When I was fourteen, I picked strawberries for a summer—before the days of “pick your own” fruit. If memory serves (and at my age it’s only a 50/50 chance that it does), I earned the princely sum of ten cents for each six quart basket filled. I credit this job with my aversion, beginning just a decade later in life, to “picking my own.” I always sent my husband and children to do that.

At sixteen I had a summer job at the hospital where my mother worked, and there met the side of her she showed the outside world. This turned into quite the revelation for me, and I think that and the fact that I earned the respect of my supervisor did much to improve our relationship.

I stuffed envelopes for the company that offered “insurance” to school kids; worked in a department store credit office; and did a very brief stint in a shoe factory.

Returning to work after my children were in school, I gravitated to office work, and then, more specifically, accounting. I enjoyed that, working with numbers, doing payroll and group benefits and accounts payable.

But I like what I do now best of all.

I relish the freedom of being at home every day. I don’t mind housework overmuch, and I enjoy “multi-tasking” – dishes and dusting interspersed with writing. I love that I can do what I want, when I want. Some days, if I’m tired, I crawl into bed for a nap. I can go shopping, or to lunch, if I want to. I don’t, often, but the freedom of choice is fabulous.

You know how, no matter where you work, or what you do, there’s always that one co-worker who annoys the heck out of you?

I don’t have that problem anymore. And on top of everything else, I get to go to work every day in my jammies!

But the best part of my job by far is the number of people I have met online, and in person. It’s the emails I receive and the comments I read. I might occupy this space alone each day, but I know that I’m never really alone at all. I have all of you.

Like I said, I have the best job in the world.

Love,

Morgan

A novel so daring it could only be called...Brazen!

Brazen Seduction now available

http://www.bookstrand.com/brazen-seduction

Growing up in Canada, I’m old enough to remember the great Flag debate of 1964-1965. For those of you who don’t know, up until then, our flag was the Union Jack. Now you’re all saying ... hmmm ... why does that name sound familiar?

The Union Jack is the flag of Great Britain. We have always been the shy, insecure child who did not want to let go of our parent's apron strings. Our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, is quoted as having said, “A British subject I was born, and a British subject I shall die.” That was during the negotiation of the British North America act of 1867 which created the Dominion of Canada. Whose Dominion? Why, the Queen’s, of course.

Then came the Statutes of Westminster, 1931, at which point Canada’s legislature was granted independence from Britain’s. Ha, you thought we were a free and independent nation in 1867, but no, it didn’t happen until 1931.

By the way, my mother adopted Sir John A’s sentiment as her own and darn near clobbered my brother for daring to put a red and white Maple Leaf flag on the family car back in 1964. Mother was very disappointed to lose the Union Jack (when Parliament adopted the Maple Leaf on Feb. 15, 1965) and the Canadian Ensign (an Ensign is less than an official flag – sort of like one of those team banners on Survivor).

Hell of a long time to wait to take our first steps, wasn’t it? We began to run in 1982, when we repatriated our Constitution from Great Britain. But to this day (as any of you may have noticed if you watched the opening of the Olympics), we have a Governor General who is the representative of our official head of state: the Queen. So we may be walking and running, but it feels as if we’re tethered. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Royal. God Bless The Queen.

You’re probably all wondering where I am going with this history lesson.

Well, my point is that all of my life, I’ve been very aware of Canada’s “national character” and that character is of a younger sibling not quite sure of itself or its place in the world. Feeling as if it’s never quite good enough. In other words, we the people of this nation have always had an inferiority complex. We have always been your shy, quiet neighbor to the north, the neighbor whose patriotism always came out at the decibel level of a whisper.

To a certain extent, we’re still like that. So when the 2010 Olympics were yet months away, an ad campaign began (with the key line: Do You Believe?) to try and stir Canadians’ hearts to the point that we would not only actually yell and scream and wave our flags, but maybe believe that we deserved to stand with the best in the world.

In addition, in 2005, an actual technical program called “Own the Podium” was created with the purpose to prepare athletes and coaches with the best technical knowledge, leadership, and training with the goal of achieving prominence in the winter Olympics of 2010 (a worthy goal, since in the previous two Olympics held in our nation, no Canadian athlete won a single gold medal). This was not a “secret plan,” as I remember hearing about it on television during the coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Why shouldn’t a nation invest itself in its young people, teach them that it’s okay to strive for excellence, to want to win? And yet everyone from Stephen Colbert to the British tabloids are heaping invectives upon my country over that program and these Olympics.

There is no question, the horrific accident on the luge track last week in which an athlete from Georgia, Nodar Kumaritashvili, lost his life was beyond tragic. No one expected such a thing to happen at such a joyous celebration as the Olympics, and yet many of the sports I see represented here can be very dangerous. Sports fans everywhere mourned the death of so young a man who had come only to do his best, and well they should. Obviously, the accident needs to be investigated, and the decision to move the starting point on the track to below the sharp curve that created such high speeds was the right decision to make.

Perhaps recommendations will come that will improve the safety of a sport which to me looks insanely dangerous to begin with. This is good, and necessary. This is what we, as a civilized people, need to do, so that tragedies need not be repeated.

I’m not certain it’s fair to blame an entire nation, to insinuate that with one mind we sought to harm this young man. Own the Podium is not—despite what some of the media would have you believe—synonymous with “win at any cost.”

We may dare to seek to stand taller, but we are still Canadians.

Love,

Morgan

http://www.bookstrand.com/authors/morganashbury