Enjoying the Journey....
Happy New Year! I just looked back on my few posts in 2023 and well... it was a year. It wasn't a bad year, really, but it wasn't one where I can look back and think "yeah, I really got what I wanted out of that." Some great things happened, but I never really felt like I was in control of things in 2023. Rather, things controlled me. I let work eat my life far more than I would like. We got super…
Friday evening, Petunia told me one of her best friends at school had tested positive for COVID. Her friend had a scratchy throat so had worn a mask to school, but went home early and by evening tested positive. I opened more windows, turned our main air filter up a notch, and moved our little air filter into Petunia's room. We tested Petunia the next morning - negative. But her luck did not hold.…
We're recently returned from our big summer vacation - it was a bit of a friends and family tour in that we saw friends or family at every stop. But it was also a really great vacation to wonderful places (Rarotonga and Australia) so I'll try to write something about it over on Adjusted Latitudes soon. We came back to some busy weeks at work and with Petunia's summer activities, and since we once…
I thought that perhaps when I stopped posting on Twitter I might write more here, but it hasn't worked out that way. I do occasionally post over on Post or Instagram, but mostly I lurk. I haven't stopped lurking on Twitter but increasingly it feels like I should. I thought that maybe I'd waste less time scrolling and spend more time reading, and that has sort of worked out. I am finding it depends…
Happy New Year! I have had such a bad run of success with New Year's resolutions/intentions/goals that I decided to try something different this year. I wrote a list of all the things I'd like to improve upon. I did this quickly, without thinking too much about it. I figured this would get me the list of things that are most on my mind. Then I looked at the list to see if there were any themes.…
I've written so infrequently here that I can't do the type of wrap up post I used to do, where I picked my favorite post from each month. I don't know if I'll ever get back to posting regularly. I enjoy writing but I am not sure what I want to write about here these days. Perhaps that will become clear in 2023. I just read through the few posts I did write this year and it was nice to review them,…
I finally made my job decision. After much agonizing, I decided to take the promotion at my current company. It was a really hard decision, and I don't think I'll ever really be certain it was the best decision, but it was the one that felt most right. I decided it gave me the most chance for growth and also for feeling like I have true ownership of something. The interviewing and deciding process…
It has been awhile! I, like many people on Twitter, have been watching Twitter the company self-destruct. Or, more accurately, be destroyed by their new CEO. I said on Twitter that the place to find me when it goes belly up is here, because I may actually just pull back from social media altogether. There are things I'll miss and things I won't miss and I'm not in the right headspace to go set up…
Happy Labor Day! It is a much needed long weekend for me. My work situation is still muddled. Back when I was actively angry about how things had gone at my current company, I stopped saying "no" automatically to people who contacted me on LinkedIn. That didn't lead to much right away, but I think word has gotten out in the industry that things are unsettled at my company, because in the last…
So, it has been awhile, eh? Work continues to eat up more of my life than it should. I am doing some stuff I really like but it is clear that the core thing I bring to this role is my ability to navigate patiently through various roadblocks and Get Stuff Done and I am not sure what I think about that. Part of me thinks I should just lean into that since it is the thing I'm good at that…
We're entering the years when our children have their own busy social calendars and I'm not sure what I think about it. It doesn't really matter what I think about it, of course. My kids are becoming their own people and our job as parents is changing from actively setting their course to being a helpful guide as they plot their own course, and eventually we'll just need to be there to support…
Not much has changed in my work situation. My friend/new boss is trying very hard to get me credit for my work and I think is having some success. The work itself continues to be interesting, but there is too much of it and we don't have a junior person on the team (I am the most junior by title and my title includes "Senior") so I spent the equivalent of an entire work day on some time-consuming…
Well, it has been awhile. Petunia's bout of covid passed without infecting any of the rest of us. She had symptoms between a bad cold and a flu that lasted for a few days. She doesn't seem to have any lingering effects. I had another weird heartbeat incident but this time we called 911 as I had been told to do. Paramedics came to my house and caught the arrhythmia on a monitor. I also caught it on…
COVID got us. Sort of. Because I think it will feel good to write it all out, here's how it has gone so far: Wednesday night, after her Zoom ballet class, Petunia said her throat felt scratchy. I said it was probably allergies and we'd see how she felt in the morning. The ballet class had been moved online after the school had three COVID cases in other classes the week before. Smart move from the…
We're through our first week back at school and so far we're all healthy (knocks furiously on wood). My kids report that a few kids were out in each class and that a lot of kids and teachers have upgraded their masks. My kids are still wearing their KF94s. I don't think it is reasonable to think they could keep a fit-tested, sealed N95/KN95 on for an entire day - they have to take the mask off for…
I had today off work. My company always gives us New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off, and since New Year's Day was a Saturday they gave us January 3 off. It was nice. I couldn't sleep in - the kids had to go to school today and I needed to be up to upload the home covid test results. In some ways it was nice not to sleep in and instead to get the full day to myself (my husband was working). I…
Here we are, at the end of 2021. Looking back at the post I wrote on December 31, 2020 , I was hopeful for a better 2021. In some ways, it was a better year but for me it was an even harder year than 2020 was. Here's hoping 2022 brings some improvement. It will certainly be starting out rough, with us sending our kids back to school in the middle of the omicron spike here. My older daughter showed…
I had a really intense work week. Work didn't spill outside of regular hours much, but my regular work hours were packed. Monday was a solid day of meetings, starting at 8:30 and wrapping up at 4. I had a few short breaks to answer emails and eat lunch, but nothing over 15 minutes. Tuesday wasn't much better. And Thursday featured an unexpected outage on one of the servers my team was using, which…
I have a nice long list of things I should be doing but I feel like writing one of my random update posts instead, so I will do that first. ------- My work had a holiday party this week. Inexplicably, given the lovely San Diego climate, it was indoors at an Italian restaurant. It is probably the riskiest thing I've done in 2 years covid-wise since my work (inexplicably, since we are a…
I keep thinking I'll get back to more frequent posting, and life keeps getting in the way. I miss writing, though, and am trying to reconfigure life to make more space for it and other hobbies. I wish I could say I have happy updates from the last post, but for the most part I do not. Our hamster did not make it. She seemed to be recovering, but then about three weeks after surgery she took a turn…
So, it has been awhile. A lot has happened and my weekends just never seemed to have time for a blog post. I'm not sure if my Saturday mornings will eventually settle down again and I'll be able to bring Weekend Reading posts back. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I've decided I have to just let things evolve for a bit and see where I land. -------- Let's start this update with something…
The first week of high school was exhausting. I'm joking, but only a bit. Everything is fine - better than fine, even - but helping a child who inherited my tendency to worry about and overthink everything navigate her first week in a new school (remember, she was at a K-8 school before this!) and the fact that music at this school turned out to be different than expected... well, that's been a…
I am back from vacation but sooo behind on everything. We got back a week ago. The vacation was wonderful - I hope to write it up on Adjusted Latitudes soon, and I'm currently sharing pictures from each day on Instagram (I'm @restlessrabbit42 over there). I was worried about the airports and airplanes but mostly people followed the mask rules and it felt OK. We managed to keep to our rule of no…
I'm going to be even scarcer than usual around her for the next few weeks. I've got some vacation time coming up and I think I'm going to try to unplug from everything and see if that helps my burnout. Anyway, the links are all starting to seem the same. There are only so many ways to say "get vaccinated," I guess! If you've seen the news about the Provincetown outbreak and other breakthrough…
I had a scary experience Thursday. I had just sat down to work, a little later than usual because Petunia had slept in a bit. I felt a tickle in my throat, coughed, and then my heartbeat went screwy. I do not know whether to call it an irregular heartbeat or heart palpitations or something else, but I knew that if I didn't lay down I'd probably pass out so I went to the sofa and waited for it to…