Red Hot

So the common idea about red heads is that they also have a red hot temper. Do I believe this? I don't know. Is it right about me? Again, the jury is still out. I'd like to think that it isn't the case. I'd like to think that I'm a fairly mellow person. Then something comes along to disturb my calm. It is then that I am confronted with what I will do.

I've learned that even though I may feel unable to control my anger, I can completely control my actions and words. Past experience has displayed in detail the shattering consequences my angry words can create. It is much harder to pick up the pieces of a negative situation gone much worse thanks to me, than it is to just let the dust settle and look at the picture as a whole.

My mom always told me to ask myself, "What do I want the result to be from this action or these words?" I know I'm angry when the answer to that is to just zing the other person. In the end that doesn't get me anywhere near where I'd like to be in any situation.

That's the little lecture I give to myself whenever I feel myself wanting to respond to anyone in anger. I may end up saying the exact same thing to them later I may decide to say something completely different or even nothing at all. But, when I do it with a level head I get much better results 100% of the time.

Which makes me curious, do most people consider themselves level headed? Do most people I know consider me level headed? (Please don't answer that one. It would be embarrassing either way you answered.) Does my pep talk make me have less of a temper or merely help me to control the temper that I do have? What are some other things people tell themselves to keep from saying things they'll regret?

Grrrrr!

Charlotte went down for her nap this morning all on her own. It was amazing. I just put her down in her crib and she rolled to her side and went to sleep. (She sleeps on her side now all the time. I think it's funny.) I was so happy and thought today was going to be a great sleeping/playing day for her. Then approximately ten minutes later workers started to pound on our house. LOUDLY. I was pretty annoyed, but they hadn't woken up the baby and probably they were doing something that needed to be done on the roof of our place.

Now I realize that our house is approximately 2 feet away from our neighbor's and also that the old in the window air conditioning unit sticks out into that space. It would be really difficult to get to the roof from the side of the house. Do you really have to drop EVERYTHING you drop right onto the metal air conditioning unit? Yes, that sound wakes up my baby. Every.single.time. I just get her back to sleep and then they manage to drop more! If they don't drop stuff on the unit then they're banging around on our roof. My anger started to rise as I was trying to work with a screaming baby. It was only kept in check by the fact that I figured the work on the place needed to be done.

This only helped until I took out the garbage. As I was putting it in the dumpster behind our house I looked back and saw that, although their ladder was placed next to our house they were actually working on the chimney of our neighbor's house. They've been clomping, banging, throwing things at our house while not even working on our house! And now they've decided it's time to again bang on our roof. And yes, my baby did just wake up screaming once again.