It’s 5:32 am on Sunday morning. My brother works the overnight and didn’t want to wake us, so asked me to call when I was up so he could come home and go to sleep. When I called, it sounded like he was at a bar and having a grand old time – he’s not coming home just yet.
I wanted to run my online programs but, for some reason, the network I tapped into yesterday is not showing up. It came through when I walked away from the computer for a minute, so I’m not sure what the issue is.
The coffee’s ready, and I’ll be up now for awhile before Rachel wakes up. She’s turning but I know it’s too early to encourage her to actually open her eyes. And I can’t wait for the surprise. I want to have my camera ready for it. It snowed while we slept. There aren’t huge blankets, but with the view from my brother’s place of warehouse roofs and the park, it looks that way. At first, I hadn’t even noticed the snow on the balcony ledge then table and chairs.
The wind is howling, but Brad told me to expect that – it’s what happens when you’re on the 10th floor of the highest building in the area, facing a …what is it? a lake? ... in the middle of winter. Rachel asked me to make sure the sliding glass door was closed, thinking the opening was causing the noise. The door is closed and locked. And the heat is on high.
I’m nice and cozy for now, but I imagine that little world will come crumbling down as soon as we hit the street. We’re all headed to the city to visit my aunt and uncle for brunch. On the way, we’ll pick up Daniel, my nephew. Thinking about all this is worrying me – Brad needs to get a few hours sleep, especially since he had an abbreviated sleep yesterday, coming to get us from the airport and entertain. We’ll never get there on time if Brad can’t wake up. And I’m sure his ex will pick a fight if he’s late to pick up Daniel.
The wireless network seems to be back, but the connection to the internet is not quite there. Once it is, it’s back to auto-surfing for me. Nope, not so lucky today – got a false positive there for a moment. And on top of that, we’re out of Equal. This baby’s coming with me to the city – I have to find that hot spot.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Life Update Part I
I’m writing this while sitting on the plane, headed up to New York. Unless the battery dies out, I can’t use the excuse that I didn’t have time to write a complete update on my life. I’ll take it a topic at a time covering the usual – diet/fitness, men, work, health and miscellaneous.
Diet/Fitness: I’ve been rock solid on working out, people would be amazed to see me as that gung ho weight training addict. I guess I’m just afraid if I stop or go off-track, it’ll be permanent. Going on this trip, I allowed myself one week to deviate from the plan. I’m doing the plan from BodyRx which I hear is just like Body for Life and there are four 6-week cycles. I’m in the middle of cycle two. The days I was available this week, I just did cardio, so I wouldn’t have an incomplete plan week. I’ll pick back up with the weight training when I get back, starting a new week.
Unfortunately, I still can’t get my act together on the food. I’d gained 5 lbs. over Christmas vacation, and this week started off well…but ended with a Cold Stone Creamery bang. Not sure how to get my head back where it needs to be.
Men: Well, I had 2 men being juggled as December began, with a clear front runner in my interest and interest in me – too bad they weren’t one and the same. Bachelor #1 turned into Christmas vacation boyfriend and then disappeared into thin air. Bachelor #2 I didn’t pay much attention to, but he hung in there – he even told me he’d worried that I might’ve met someone else since I didn’t get in touch with him. I set him straight that I won’t chase a man, and figured he’d given up since he hadn’t called me. Since Bachelor #1 disappeared, I’ve resumed with Bachelor #2 a little more regularly.
Problem - Bachelor #1 is the one I had the major attraction for, but wasn’t great relationship material. Bachelor #2 I don’t have much attraction for, but he is great relationship material. I’m hanging in there with him, hoping I’ll feel better about him after spending more time together. The parenting/work schedules don’t facilitate that much. Better slow, I suppose. Bachelor #2 already has faced my firing line when I confronted him on being bothered by his interrupting me – told me he’s glad I mentioned it and that it helps him to know. Bachelor #1 I got back in touch with because I needed his help for computer stuff (that’s what he does for a living), but I suppose there was some hidden agenda that I wanted to see what the heck happened to him – we talked computer geek stuff and then I asked him and he played like he didn’t know what I was referring to and hemmed and hawed about being really busy and having issues with his son. I just changed the subject. In the end it doesn’t matter – he’s obviously “just not that into” me.
And of course we can’t forget John. I haven’t seen him since just after the hurricane, so that’s about 2 months. We’ve started talking more frequently, because I got him into the auto-surfing/high risk web investments I’ve been doing. It’s friendly and business-ey mostly, but every now and then playful – if you catch my drift. We talk about getting together but this is another one where schedules don’t work well, and I’m not desperate. It’s nothing but booty, so I’m not thinking more of it.
Dangit, the seats in planes go back so far - with the guy in front of me, I can’t even open the laptop completely.
Work: Oh the drama. Things seem to be progressing, but I put my foot in my mouth by telling my boss my honest feelings about my raise. She thought I’d be really excited because she was so proud that they finally were able to raise me to what they determined my salary range to be, in their compensation study. However, I admitted that I’d actually felt slighted - the salary range is $X to $X+20,000. My new salary was $X-$80. She said “I can’t believe you’re complaining over $80. I told her it was principle…thanks to the market adjustment, I really didn’t get a merit raise at all despite my exceptional performance review. That raise would’ve happened anyway due to the market adjustment…she said that wasn’t the case b/c there were still people left that are under market – were too high a difference to get to market rate right now. I also said that if the value of my position is "this" - "that" and my pay was $80 below "this", then what does that say about my value to the company? Anyhow, it resulted in upsetting my boss…I wasn’t sure if it was frustration with me that she did so much and couldn’t please me or just feeling bad that I felt bad. I assured her over and over how grateful I am to her, for all that she’s done to help me get where I am today – not just money, but position and respectability and developing me.
Fast forward a few weeks later – this week there’s a minor restructuring in the company and they hand my boss, the VP, another department to run in addition to what she’s got. They determine she’s just got too much responsibility and she’s got to give a department up. Guess who? Right. She assured me that it had nothing to do with what happened with the salaries and she’ll always be there to bounce ideas off of, if I have questions.
So now, my new boss is the a new director that they hired about 3 months ago. There was a huge hubbub over her coming in because basically they left out any background information on her and just told us that she was a friend and former colleague of the President and Vice President that has been home for 5 years raising her kids – she’s my age, looks young and all we know is that she’s worked with them at a previous company. Interestingly enough, we were becoming friendly and even went to lunch last week…I told her a lot of stuff I might not have been so frank about had I known she was about to become my boss. She knew at the time. After my current boss told me the news and what it would mean, the new boss came to talk to me and address what she imagined my concerns to be - I'm going to skip the details on here for confidentiality purposes. Long story short, I told her “you tell what I need to learn and do to get to [the next level]and I’ll get there in 18 months," that I wouldn’t need two years. She smiled and said “I have no doubt.” Stay tuned!
Health: No complaints, no problems, great news.
Miscellaneous: I think you’ve read enough.
Diet/Fitness: I’ve been rock solid on working out, people would be amazed to see me as that gung ho weight training addict. I guess I’m just afraid if I stop or go off-track, it’ll be permanent. Going on this trip, I allowed myself one week to deviate from the plan. I’m doing the plan from BodyRx which I hear is just like Body for Life and there are four 6-week cycles. I’m in the middle of cycle two. The days I was available this week, I just did cardio, so I wouldn’t have an incomplete plan week. I’ll pick back up with the weight training when I get back, starting a new week.
Unfortunately, I still can’t get my act together on the food. I’d gained 5 lbs. over Christmas vacation, and this week started off well…but ended with a Cold Stone Creamery bang. Not sure how to get my head back where it needs to be.
Men: Well, I had 2 men being juggled as December began, with a clear front runner in my interest and interest in me – too bad they weren’t one and the same. Bachelor #1 turned into Christmas vacation boyfriend and then disappeared into thin air. Bachelor #2 I didn’t pay much attention to, but he hung in there – he even told me he’d worried that I might’ve met someone else since I didn’t get in touch with him. I set him straight that I won’t chase a man, and figured he’d given up since he hadn’t called me. Since Bachelor #1 disappeared, I’ve resumed with Bachelor #2 a little more regularly.
Problem - Bachelor #1 is the one I had the major attraction for, but wasn’t great relationship material. Bachelor #2 I don’t have much attraction for, but he is great relationship material. I’m hanging in there with him, hoping I’ll feel better about him after spending more time together. The parenting/work schedules don’t facilitate that much. Better slow, I suppose. Bachelor #2 already has faced my firing line when I confronted him on being bothered by his interrupting me – told me he’s glad I mentioned it and that it helps him to know. Bachelor #1 I got back in touch with because I needed his help for computer stuff (that’s what he does for a living), but I suppose there was some hidden agenda that I wanted to see what the heck happened to him – we talked computer geek stuff and then I asked him and he played like he didn’t know what I was referring to and hemmed and hawed about being really busy and having issues with his son. I just changed the subject. In the end it doesn’t matter – he’s obviously “just not that into” me.
And of course we can’t forget John. I haven’t seen him since just after the hurricane, so that’s about 2 months. We’ve started talking more frequently, because I got him into the auto-surfing/high risk web investments I’ve been doing. It’s friendly and business-ey mostly, but every now and then playful – if you catch my drift. We talk about getting together but this is another one where schedules don’t work well, and I’m not desperate. It’s nothing but booty, so I’m not thinking more of it.
Dangit, the seats in planes go back so far - with the guy in front of me, I can’t even open the laptop completely.
Work: Oh the drama. Things seem to be progressing, but I put my foot in my mouth by telling my boss my honest feelings about my raise. She thought I’d be really excited because she was so proud that they finally were able to raise me to what they determined my salary range to be, in their compensation study. However, I admitted that I’d actually felt slighted - the salary range is $X to $X+20,000. My new salary was $X-$80. She said “I can’t believe you’re complaining over $80. I told her it was principle…thanks to the market adjustment, I really didn’t get a merit raise at all despite my exceptional performance review. That raise would’ve happened anyway due to the market adjustment…she said that wasn’t the case b/c there were still people left that are under market – were too high a difference to get to market rate right now. I also said that if the value of my position is "this" - "that" and my pay was $80 below "this", then what does that say about my value to the company? Anyhow, it resulted in upsetting my boss…I wasn’t sure if it was frustration with me that she did so much and couldn’t please me or just feeling bad that I felt bad. I assured her over and over how grateful I am to her, for all that she’s done to help me get where I am today – not just money, but position and respectability and developing me.
Fast forward a few weeks later – this week there’s a minor restructuring in the company and they hand my boss, the VP, another department to run in addition to what she’s got. They determine she’s just got too much responsibility and she’s got to give a department up. Guess who? Right. She assured me that it had nothing to do with what happened with the salaries and she’ll always be there to bounce ideas off of, if I have questions.
So now, my new boss is the a new director that they hired about 3 months ago. There was a huge hubbub over her coming in because basically they left out any background information on her and just told us that she was a friend and former colleague of the President and Vice President that has been home for 5 years raising her kids – she’s my age, looks young and all we know is that she’s worked with them at a previous company. Interestingly enough, we were becoming friendly and even went to lunch last week…I told her a lot of stuff I might not have been so frank about had I known she was about to become my boss. She knew at the time. After my current boss told me the news and what it would mean, the new boss came to talk to me and address what she imagined my concerns to be - I'm going to skip the details on here for confidentiality purposes. Long story short, I told her “you tell what I need to learn and do to get to [the next level]and I’ll get there in 18 months," that I wouldn’t need two years. She smiled and said “I have no doubt.” Stay tuned!
Health: No complaints, no problems, great news.
Miscellaneous: I think you’ve read enough.
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