Cow's tail here checking in after months of being away.

As long as women know their places and stay there, glass ceilings don't exist.

It's a joke, 'kay? Although not a very funny one.

I, for one, am VERY, VERY, VERY happy to have left the corporate world behind as well as the manure for brains men I had to work and deal with.

Corporate America, in my not so humble opinion, is a major rape job and the victim is the family. I hated and detested working for men, and women too I'm sorry to report, who felt that more hours, more work, more production, more blood and sweat but, God Forbid No Tears, was what was demanded. And "if you couldn't do it, well then...maybe you should just find something else you could handle".

As an aside, I hope *that* particular man's daughter has had, in spades, what her daddy handed out to me for years. I hope everytime she goes home she has war stories to tell him that make him quiver in his polyester suits.

Yep, I work harder and get physically pushed around a lot more now...but I'm my own boss. If I get pushed around by one of my horses, I can take a riding crop to him/her...which doesn't happen often, btw. My animals are treated better than a lot of humans in this country and the animals reward me by behaving well and respectfully. If a horse steps on me and I want to cry...I'll have a good cry then wipe my tears on their manes.

I live by the rhythms of the earth...up with the light and to bed with the dark. It's a wonderful thing to lie in a cozy, warm bed with my knitting or a good book or just my thoughts and prayers before drifing into a restful, peaceful sleep. I actually think I became ill in late Aug/early Sep because my, natural to me, rhythms were totally skewed. I was working too hard at off the farm projects, not eating correctly, not drinking enough water, not living "right" and my body let me know it was *not* happy.

I'm grateful for my experiences, my jobs and my bosses...even the losers. I'm the person I am today because of the life I've lived, the jobs I've had and the people for whom I've worked. It took me a long time to realize that I didn't have to buy into everything the feminist movement was selling. It took me a long time to realize I could be "me", basically a good person and practicing Christian, and still be a loving, productive member of society with a lot to give without trashing people in the process.

When the time came for guts to leave the corporate workplace...I was more than ready. I left more than ten years ago and have never, ever looked back. I talk to my female friends who are still in corporate America and their stories curl my hair. I don't envy them, not one little bit. There are legions of women who have left the corporate workplace and we're managing just fine, thank you very much.

It's the journey *and* the hope of a destination that makes us who we are and allows us to become who we want to become. It's knowing money is a tool and it doesn't own us, we own it. It's knowing we can help someone else along the way and not lose any of ourselves in the process. It's knowing that if we lose ourselves, even a little piece of ourselves, then we've done ourselves, as well as the rest of humankind, a great disservice.

ahem.

sorry about the tirade and I'll slink down off my soap box now.

thank you for letting me vent.