Listening to the Violent Femmes as the mighty yellow NS train brings me through the Dutch countryside on my way up to Groningen. It’s Thursday which means that is a 605AM train from Rotterdam Centraal to Groningen. Yep, first train of the day. At the station before even the Starbucks opens (slackers). Wow, this music brings back memories of my high school years!

Unfortunately, this morning there is someone sitting across from me. Usually, I have the route from Zwolle to Assen (heh, from Z to A) solo and this is about the time that my coffee wears off and I snore for the ride between the two. Not this morning, so I am typing away in attempt to keep from giving into the temptation!

Normally I take the train from Groningen too but tonight I have to be in Amsterdam so I am catching a ride down from Groningen with someone I used to know from the MS days. Not only is Vincent a very interesting entrepreneur, he is also a champion ballroom dancer which I would never have expected from him. Previously I used to give him advice on how to deal with big corporates and now I am going to be asking him advice from the startup experience. 😉

Tonight I am hosting the montly meetup and then tomorrow I sign all of the paperwork for transferring my rights to my Amsterdam apartment to the new owner. I think that’s going to feel a little weird. I like where we live now and it would be very uncomfortable to going back to a place where everyone can see into your garden. Our current garden is kind of like a fort and I like it that way!

Sitting on the couch, serving as harbor to Henry and George. Olive was here a moment ago but she has moved to the corner of the couch so as to get away from the snoring.

We had to take George to the vet today because yesterday while neither of us was here, he had a seizure downstairs in the office with my IT person and had a hard time breathing. I was all the way in Groningen when I heard this and you can imagine the sorts of worst case scenarios that have been spinning through my head.

The vet couldn’t find anything obvious other than George sounds a bit like he has a sore throat. She did some secret vet trick by pressing on his throat which should have made him swallow but instead made him cough. She sent us home with cough syrup. I forgot to ask if it is liver flavored or something equally disgusting. Maybe I can get GG to try it if I pour it in a whiskey glass. 😉

Yet another week flew by. Looking at my notes, I think I have even more plans than when I started the week. That’s not a bad thing. I really think we might be on to something, that things are really close to coming to vibrant life. That would be nice! Actually, that would be amazing. 🙂 Let’s not kid ourselves.

I’ve got to write this out before I have my mentoring call this evening. Somehow the only fitting soundtrack is Guns N. Roses. I don’t know why, but a group of longhaired, surly, men in overly tight pants seems like a good mood companion.

The past 8 months have been intense and frantic. Along with all of the new things I have been busy learning, there have also been tons of emotions that tend to get swept to the side because something else needs to be done. I think that’s probably why I am having a hard time shaking this particular thing, now that I look at that sentence.

A young person in my life called me today to catch up and to find out how things were going. She also wanted to tell me about some conversations in her workplace that she was struggling with. Individuals that I know and truthfully don’t spend much time thinking about. Or let’s say WAY less time thinking about them than they do me apparently. I was one of the topics of the conversation and when I heard what was discussed, I was just so frustrated.

I felt like it was so unfair of this person to be talking all of this shit about me. None of which is true. Especially that I am so angry and burning all my bridges when all they want to do is “help” me. Okay, number one, I am not angry – I am focused on building my company and making change in the world. Combined with my home life and other things I place a priority on, that means I am not interested in having meetings for meetings sake and spending time with people who are more concerned with maintaining the status quo than doing something to change it. Get over it and yourself – I don’t need anyone’s permission to do anything except my own. That’s what rocks about being your own boss.

Number two, they called the program that I was working on with some other companies (who switched directions in mid program because they weren’t ready to take the risk on the future) an “epic failure”. WOW. I was unaware my irritation could go that high that fast 😉 But I know what it really is – I am reacting to them calling the people in my program “epic failures” and they are not. They may have less privilege to access and do things a bit differently but they are sure as shit not failures.

This is the part that makes me batshit crazy. This kind of commentary and wasted hot air from someone who has every benefit of privilege and has zero empathy and compassion for anyone that doesn’t look like her or can help her look like a winner. I have to let this big boiling ball of energy go. Not blindly where it can bounce of buildings and knock out power lines but into something positive.

I tried going for a walk with the boys but somehow the weather picked up my mood and all of a sudden the winds were gusting like crazy, it was hailing and we were forced to hide under a small roof of a building. It was a pretty great visualization of my mood though! 😉

When I am suitably mature and calm, I will have my mentoring call and appear to be the voice of reason. 😉 And in between I am busy writing content for the new version of our website that needs to launch Monday.

And for the hell of it, the message I have to my former colleague who thinks we failed “Nanny, nanny boo boo, stick your head in doodoo because I don’t need permission from any of you.”  😉