Five Things: Stepping Up
1. Work
Out with the old boss in with the new, for now. After my old boss announced he was leaving in January he went to radio silence. I’ve been told he was around until May.. but I didn’t see hide nor hair of him and he certainly wasn’t checking in on my progress on projects. I guess it’s a good thing I’m pretty good at self-motivating. I just kept doing what I’d been doing. After a few weeks of the radio silence I was contacted my my new boss (old boss’s boss) and we started doing one-on-ones. My new boss is the Chief Technology Officer. As in.. he reports to the CEO. So it’s like I’ve moved up in the corporate ladder by eliminating middle management. Whatever. I’m still doing essentially the same job. I’m “she who knows how the ads work”. My “new” job is to keep doing what I’ve been doing and to help instruct my new boss on “all things about ads that he needs to know.” ie, things I’d planned to do anyway.
I have a feeling they’ll be bring someone new to replace my old boss. At this point the CTO is doing a bit of hand waving and telling me to keep on doing what I’ve been doing.. I think there needs to be another level of management between us making the strategic decisions about the departmental direction. I kind of wish I had the skill set to step into that position.. but I also recognize that I’m a lot more technically focused (and strictly ad focused) than the position needs. I think bring someone new in will be good for the organization.
2. Home/Erik
In March we moved from the old rental house (3BR/2BA) into a new rental house (4BR/2.5BA) right across the street. It was a fairly easy move. We had a ton of help and I am grateful to every one of them.
I really like the new house. It has a lot more space (and one more bedroom) than the old house. I’m still in the honeymoon phase. I’m cleaning rooms just because they’d look better cleaned. The owners of the house have agreed to a 1 year lease. At the end of that year they want to sell the house. That said, they’ve mentioned they’d like to sell it to us. Today is 3 years to the day since we short-sold our last house. This means sometime in the next month or so I’ll go talk to a bank and see what would be involved in getting approved to put in a bid for this house.
Shopping for plants for the garden
Erik is now 18 months old. He’s finally becoming less clingy to mommy. When we go out to eat I’m now allowed to go to the bathroom without inducing a full meltdown. I’m now allowed to walk away from him and just last week I was allowed to go into the kitchen and cook dinner while he hung out in the family room (the kitchen overlooks the family room so we could see each other the whole time). This is fantastic.
Until you’ve done it you don’t realize how tiring it is to have every decision governed by “What will Erik do?”. Ie, I want to start a load of laundry. The dirty laundry is in the laundry basket upstairs and Erik is happily playing with his toys downstairs. You’re solo parent for the moment (other parent off running an errand) choose one action:
a) Action: Run upstairs, grab laundry, thrown downstairs. Run back downstairs and start laundry.
Outcome: As soon as you leave downstairs Erik will burst into screaming and attempt to follow you upstairs possibly tumbling down the stairs.
b) Action: Pick up Erik, go upstairs, grab laundry, thrown laundry downstairs. Run back downstairs and start laundry.
Outcome: As soon as you pick Erik up he may start screaming (he doesn’t want to go upstairs he’s having fun playing) or you may make it all the way upstairs without screaming but you can’t let him run loose upstairs while you throw laundry downstairs (he may tumble down the stairs) so you put him in his crib to keep him contained. As soon as you leave him in his crib he’ll start screaming.
c) Action: Wait until Erik goes down for a nap. Grab laundry, throw downstairs. Run back downstairs and do nothing.
Outcome: Good job, you’ve gotten the laundry downstairs but you can’t start running the load because the washer is too loud and you won’t be able to hear Erik over the washer. You’ll need to wait until he wakes up before you start the load of laundry. Good first step though.
d) nevermind I really don’t need clean clothes
Suddenly I can actually do a). This is beyond words fantastic. I’m thrilled.
3. Health
After waiting and waiting and waiting on the new Up3 from Jawbone to ship I gave up at the end of March and asked them for a refund. The Up3 was supposed to be out in November of last year**. Two weeks ago I decided that I really do want a fitness band so I bought an UP band. It arrived last week and I’ve been wearing it for a week.
The band I got is the v1 of the UP band. It was $52 with free shipping. When I bought it I thought I was getting an Up24 (the v2 of the band) but when it arrived I realized that I’d missed the fact that is was and UP instead of the UP24. The difference seems to be that the UP24 can sync via bluetooth whereas the UP has the be plugged in to sync. It’s a scootch annoying but not annoying enough to return it.
Pros: I love the sleep and step tracking. Graphs appeal to me. The band jiggles if I havent’ taken a decent amount of steps in the last 30 minutes. This is a great “get up and stretch” reminder.
Cons: I heartily dislike the fact that the UP has no web interface. In fact I’ve been using MyFitnessPal(un:nibuca) to record food and that is sync’d over to the UP app.
Conclusion: I don’t get enough sleep or take enough steps. I’m working on that. My diet has been “okay” but not stellar. Inputting my food into a tracking app has reminded me that my “mostly 80%” adherence results in my maintaining my current weight. I sincerely love the part where I get to the end of the day and hit “yeah, I’m done with all my food today” and MyFitnessPal says “Hey, if you keep eating like this you’ll be at {this lower} weight in 5 weeks”. Just a week’s worth of tracking and I’ve already made some diet tweaks which I think will help me out.
**Coincidentally I read this morning that the UP3 is finally going to be released by April 20. For now I think I’ll stick with the UP band and maybe get an UP3 at some point in the future.
Steeping Hypocras.
4. SCA/Projects
All projects went on hold with the move.. and with the unpacking after the move. I think I’m finally at a place where I can get back to doing projects.
Prior to the move I was able to complete and try out my supportive underkirtle. It works splendidly and has helped me to be able to keep wearing my existing dresses even though they’re a bit too big. Also, for March Crown, I (loosely) followed Heidi’s recipe for Hypocras. It’s very yummy and will become an eventing staple for me.
Project list:
WANT-TO
1. 12 labeled sachets of powdre fort for hypocras to donate to largess derby at Beltane
2. Pâté for Saluminati meeting at Beltane
3. new Kirtle pattern and new kirtle for me
4. black velvet loop, frontlet, cap and veil getup (want to develop this out further and need to document)
5. lined 1488-1503 overdress
HAVE-TOS
1. Green Tunic for Fearghus
2. Eyelet on the front of F black pants
3. Medium sized tunic for our loaner garb
4. Fix pleat on Erik Waffe
5. Fix sleeves on F hemd
5.
This year has been financially up and down. Moving is expensive(cleaning the old place, deposit/bills on the new place), registration on the car/truck is expensive, taxes (sadly) this year were expensive. Happily I got a bonus from my work for having my patent actually go through. So yeah for that. At this point I think we have our finances in hand and are making positive head way. Still… I wish it was easier.
Future:
May 1-3: Beltane, Cloverdale CA
May 9: Mist/Cyn War (Fearghus only or we may daytrip), Ed Levin Park. Milpitas CA
May 16: Mists Spring Investiture (maybe, maybe not) Martinez CA
May 22-24: Cynaguan Spring Coronet (maybe, maybe not) Quincy CA
May 30: Duchess War, Santa Rosa CA
June 6: Attending Wedding
June 19-21: June Crown, Tres Pinos CA
June 30-July 5: West/An Tir War, Gold Beach CA
Mirrored from Results Typical.
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