Notes from Colleen’s Desk: Making Mountains out of Molehills

Several weeks ago I declared war. On a mole. “Maury” keeps popping up in my front yard and things are getting serious now.

It is downright distracting. I dutifully mowed the lawns last Sunday and was admiring my work until the next morning, when clearly Maury had returned.

I’d like to believe he was only popping up to say hi and let me know that I am doing a fine job watering the yard and keeping all those earthworms delectably moist. Or he is just pressing my buttons.

Probably the later. Pair this up with making feeble attempts to set up a better-suited remote office space in my home, along with my ever present technology challenges and well you guessed it, I was making mountains out of molehills.

Have you ever wondered where that saying came from? Thank goodnes for Wikipedia which tells us that this well-used idiom dates back to the 16^th century and refers to being over-reactive about minor issues.  Am I really “greatly exaggerating the severity of the situation?”

Yes, perhaps I am. And it is probably a good diversion at home; away room all the seriousness of our work and the dire constraints we know that businesses, schools and families are facing every day. None of us is untouched by this pandemic. Watch television or dare post your viewpoint on social media and you’ll experience how polarizing current events are right now.

I discovered this week that I was allowing myself to also become a little frazzled over things I simply cannot control, leading me to be particularly agitated over very minor things – that is, a few molehills in the workplace. Rats! Err, I mean…moles!

My normal protocol on most evenings upon leaving the office is to start eating my apple as I cross the parking lot to my vehicle. About mid-way home I roll down my passenger side window and throw the core out into a field. As I was driving home last night (yep, this blog is as fresh as the molehill), I was feeling pressed to arrive in a timely fashion for a personal appointment, I was also feeling particularly agitated about a few thousand non-consequential items.

Midway home as planned, I rolled down the passenger window to chuck the apple core out the window, only to have it abruptly hit the window, bounce off my passenger seat and land on the floor. Did I mention that I had just had the car detailed?

Holy Moley! I had rolled down the back-passenger window, not the front passenger window!

If I had not been hysterically laughing at myself by the time I arrived home, I might have thought to take a photo of the window to show the marvelous display of apple pieces stuck to it, along with the artistic streams of apple juice making its way down into the door’s interior.   Today, it’s just an awful smudge.

This is the very window I had to intentionally break while out in the wilderness after locking my keys in the car – maybe I ought to be saying Holy Window! Never mind that story, I’ll save that comic relief for another day.

This blog does not have much to do with anything specific happening behind the scenes at SOREDI.  The point here is comic relief; turns out that laughing at yourself does wonders.  And perhaps my encouragement to you is to lighten up out there. Rest assured, I am most definitely pointing my sticky apple finger back at myself!

What mountains are you trying to make out of molehills? The way we show up every day to do our work and live through the craziness of the day – with or without a mask – matters.  Choose your battles wisely and laugh hysterically.

On a more relevant business note, in the last few months we have responded to hundreds of businesses with daunting needs, along with many other business service partners. With the recent notice of awards for grant funding from the Economic Development Administration, SOREDI is pleased to report that we have a full staff again. We have hired Abigail Skelton, as Project Manager to shepherd these grant initiatives, work on various deferred maintenance projects and reconvene the One Rogue Valley Coalition groups. Watch for her profile soon on our website.

We are committed to exceptional customer service and excellence as we continue to work on behalf our entire region to help Southern Oregon businesses launch, relocate, and prosper. Thank you for your support!

And if you have a good strategy for tackling my front yard molehills, please do share!

Taking it out on Maury,

Colleen Padilla, Executive Director

Spice name “Lemon Pepper”