These bloomin’ crocuses are bloomin’ in our bloomin’ yard – in bloomin’ FEBRUARY!

It’s 60 degrees, sunny and clear enough to see Mt. Rainier, the Olympics and the Cascades from Seattle today!  Glorious!

In sadder news, Boo got a boo-boo and is acting like a big fat baby:

In still more news, this is the line at the Bellevue Department of Licensing at 8:15 this morning, 15 minutes before they even opened!  There were already hundreds of people in line.

The wait inside for an enhanced driver’s license for Aleks and Kat was another 1 -2 hours!  A word to the wise: if you have to go to the DOL… well, geeze – I have no advice because we did get there way early, and we still encountered a helluva wait!  There has to be a better way to get the stuff accomplished…

And the last item in my potpourri-post: my Microsoft v-dash conveniently expired a week before my tenure at Microsoft will expire, next Friday.  (A v-dash identity is connected to a specific sponsored project at Microsoft, not to the agency for whom you work.) 

This means that I can no longer get into any buildings on campus without an escort, that I can’t access the internal Microsoft network, and that I can’t take Puget Sound public transportation anywhere for free. (That one hurts… even if I never used it.)  Maybe next week I’ll write a post on things I’ll miss about Microsoft and things I won’t miss so much.  There are, in fact, items in each category.

A new leash on life

Shasta got a new leash yesterday and today is a work-at-home day for me, so while I waited for my dear artist friend Ravi to send a file from Mumbai, Shasta and I took a walk around the block.

Come join us!

This is Shasta’s new leash. (Rave for PetSmart: they exchanged her $50 leash for a new one when the cord frayed – no questions asked and no receipt needed!)

And this is Shasta’s “oh, goody gumdrops!” look when she realizes that a walk is a possibility:

That blur is a wagging tail.

“Shasta! Sit! Calm down so you don’t pull me and make me… oh, break my ankle or something!”

Good girl.

One of the main reasons we chose our house back in ‘95 is that the elementary school is literally a stone’s throw from our house. This was great when all the kids were little!

The weather has been so unseasonably warm this winter that, instead of being reduced to dry, twiggy brambles, the blackberry bushes are still green!

And look at this – a holly bush! I have never noticed this before. Isn’t it “berrying” a bit late? Isn’t this supposed to happen around, oh… Christmas? What IS it with the weather this year?!

Excuse Shasta, please!

Look over there! One of my favorite houses on the street. It’s amazing what they’ve done to this house! The wrap-around porch adds so much charm and the revised roofline – and shingles -- around the garage changes the whole character of the house.

Next stop? Stop! Turn right, Shasta.

It might not look steep to you, but this hill can be a killer on the knees (and ankle):

This place is much prettier in any season but winter, but some beauty is still to be seen in February.

These guys even seem to have an amphitheatre set up in their front yard! See the rows of chairs?

On the steep hill is the nicest – and most out-of-place – house in the neighborhood. I want it!

No wait – actually I want one of the adorable doll houses in the neighborhood! Look!

Or maybe it’s the DOLL I want! I found this German Götz doll at Tuesday Morning yesterday and came so close to buying it – and what a deal it was, down to $40 from $170!

Should I? Should I go back and get it? Look at those lederhosen… and even an edelweiss! Look at the similarity to Kat when she was little (always daddy’s little girl):

…and maybe a slight similarity to Elisabeth too (except for the hair color):

But I digress. Let’s keep walking!

This little boy loves Shasta and insisted on holding the leash to take her for his own walk…

…but he feared her too, as he apparently only has teeny-tiny dogs at home.

Just as we rounded the next corner, we came upon a house that one of my faithful readers will recognize:

…and then we were beckoned toward the short-cut to our house! (I love Photoshop!)

Who was in our forest to greet us once we climbed the hill by the neighbor’s fence? Bailey!

We romped around the forest a bit…

…until we came upon our house!

Boo had apparently been busy while we took our walk, and all this warm weather is making him think it’s spring… which is all fine and good, except this part – the gift he left by the back door:

Bad cat.

But good Ravi… who went above and beyond the call of duty, making a critical fix for us when he should have been sleeping, sent a file from Mumbai, then waited patiently for me to get back online. This post is dedicated to you, Ravi! Pleeease come visit us in Seattle someday!

The specifics

I am so excited to announce “the specifics” of my new position! Starting in a few short weeks, once I wrap up my project management work with technology and marketing projects with Microsoft, I will be taking a 180 degree turn and dive into my new position as the Manager of Professional Development at The Gottman Institute!

The mission of the Gottman Institute, as stated on their web site, really sums it up:

“We understand that the human family is in crisis, and that all individuals are capable of and deserve compassion. It is our mission to reach out to families in order to help create and maintain greater love and health in relationships. We are committed to an ongoing program of research that increases the understanding of relationships and adds to the development of interventions that have been carefully evaluated. It is our goal to make our services accessible to the broadest reach of people across race, religion, class, culture, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. We are also committed to the care and support of our Institute team, as we know that compassion must begin with ourselves.”

Also as noted on The Gottman Institute’s website… “Today, with divorce rates of 50%, couples face severe challenges and seek a scientifically sound therapy to help them in the real world. Part of the mission of the Gottman Institute is to empower therapists to provide this help to couples and families. Accordingly, the Gottman Institute offers accredited training in research-based assessment techniques and intervention strategies for mental health professionals, allied professionals and clergy who wish to serve today's couples and families.”

Specifically, I will be overseeing this training program in Gottman Method Couples Therapy. (I won’t be conducting the therapy myself, of course; I will be managing the program that certifies mental health professionals to do so.)

Can you see why I am so completely honored to have been chosen to join their team (apparently from an applicant pool of quite a few hundred)?

If you want to learn more (or realize that you’ve already read a bunch of John Gottman’s books), here’s a reading list for you:

• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
• Why Marriages Succeed or Fail… and how you can make yours last
• And Baby Makes Three
• And many, many more!

I’ve also seen mention of Gottman's work in Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. (“How do we make decisions--good and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others?”)

You will surely be hearing more (to the extent appropriate and possible, of course). I'm sure that this job will blur the lines between “work” and “life” because my heart will truly be fully engaged in both.

I am still pinching myself and grinning ear to ear at my good fortune to have been asked to join the amazing team at this wonderful Institute, and I can hardly wait to jump in!

This kinda says it all

Yes!  I found a new job!

I’ll tell you more when I can, but for now just know that it is a job that I will throw my heart into and a job in which I will impact lives in positive ways.

Finally! I’ve missed doing Work That Matters and I am so glad to be back.

I will continue in my current job for up to two weeks (depending how long it takes to find a replacement, a process I’ll help with). Then I’ll take a week or so off to clear my head – and clean the garage – and then it begins…!

I can hardly wait!

Big news is afoot!

More to come…

Reflections on Life Choices as prompted by a schmaltzy Nicholas Cage movie

I’m usually exhausted when I roll into bed after working literally morning (when production work comes in from our Mumbai production team), noon (as in, all day, when I work with Microsoft and at my agency office) and night (when I convey Microsoft’s wishes to our team for overnight production).  By the time my head hits the pillow, my mind is mush and I want to either read a good book or watch a movie – and neither should make me think.

Last night when I turned on the TV, Family Man was on.  I remember that I’d seen the movie at some point, I think on a flight years ago, but I didn’t remember details.  As I recalled, Family Man was about a wealthy corporate workaholic who one day magically finds himself to be a tire salesman living in New Jersey with his high school sweetheart wife and two kids. 

Cute.  Yawn.

I figured this light-hearted movie would fit my “mindless entertainment” requirement, so I fluffed a pillow or two and settled in.  

Ah yes… the formula is predictable but entertaining.  Rich snobby man wakes up in his new “messy” life surrounded by his wife and kids on one of those lazy entire-family-in-the-bed mornings.  He freaks out and tries to go back to his predictable Manhattan high-rise life, but is told by the angel who sent him on this freakish journey that he is being provided a “glimpse” and will just have to endure the apparent misery.

I’m getting sleepy at this point and I miss entire sections of the movie as I doze off.  I wake up to Tom gently pulling the remote from my hands and kissing my forehead as he turns off the TV.

“No, wait,” I mumble. “He has to see that his choices…” And I drifted off again. 

This morning, as I was getting ready for work I turned on the TV and there was Nicholas Cage the Family Man again (an obvious re-play of last night’s feature), only now he had settled into his married-with-children life and he was extraordinarily happy.  He had fallen in love with his kids, with his non-profit attorney wife, and with his unpredictable, messy, middle-class life.  And, predictably, it was now time for him to go back to his rich, single, corporate life – the one he loved so much before he got a “glimpse” of his other possible life, had he hade other choices.

I stood in front of the TV, riveted to the last 30 minutes of the movie as a lump formed in my throat. 

Life choices.  Forks in the road, taken.  Saying yes.  Saying no. 

Had I done it right, I wondered?  Had I made all the right choices?  Did I want the Choice Angel to give me more choices, retroactively? (Ah, movies!)

The lump in my throat grew bigger as I stood in front of the TV half-dressed and mesmerized.  It grew bigger because as I watched this Hollywood romantic comedy/soft drama, I realized beyond a doubt at the old age of 53, that I am completely, 100% satisfied with the major, life altering choices I’ve made in my life.

Most importantly, I know that I married the right man.  Had I married anyone else and had Tom reappeared in my life 20 or 30 years later, I’d be prodding the Choice Angel to give me another chance so I could marry this man.  As schmaltzy as it sounds, that realization turned the lump into a tear and I stood there, choked up and grateful for roads taken.

The little choices in life pretty much take care of themselves on a daily basis, but the Big Choices, the ones that can completely alter the course of one’s life, need more reflection and information, balanced with strong doses of trusted intuition.  I’m glad that I wasn’t fully aware of the magnitude of those Big Choices when I made them (that’s just too much pressure!), but so grateful that they turned out to be the right ones.

Or maybe I’m just sure they’re the right choices because I  lived them and made them the right choices.  Maybe!  But that’s too metaphysical for me right now because I have a to-do list a mile long and I have no choice but to work my way through it today.

Microsoft just got much smaller!

I was wondering if this would ever happen to me. No, I was hoping that someday this would happen to me…

And today it did!

I am still beaming.

So I’ve had an insane day. Got up at 6 AM to do my normal early morning work, which consists of receiving, reviewing, and (hopefully) approving work done by our amazing and wonderful production team in Mumbai, and then forwarding it on to Microsoft people who are anxiously awaiting it. I hurried through that, in spite of a few glitches, then hurried off to Harborview Medical Center where I had a follow-up ankle appointment (yes, 13 months later and I’m still in the process of healing). Harborview days are always insane because I feel like I’m thrown into a (literally) crazy world full of discouraged, damaged and devastated people. It always bums me out.

Anyway… I left Harborview in a hurry because I had a very full day of meetings at Microsoft and I knew I’d be flying from meeting to meeting, from building to building, from client to client, all afternoon. My workload is just about at that tipping point where I’ve reached full capacity and one more task could lead to – shudder and gasp! – dropped balls.

One meeting down. Client happy. Writer writing. Artist creating. Next meeting: GO!

I drove to the next building, scrambled for parking, clipped on my badge, and ran (ok, that’s a lie; I still can’t really run) into the building. Room 2051… where is it? Ah, here it is!

Knock-knock.

The friendly voice on the other side of the door, a new client named Cathy I’d be meeting today for the first time, called “Come in,” so I did.

“Oh my god…” She stared at me and then announced, “You’re Northwest Ladybug!”

Yup – I randomly met a faithful reader who, it turns out, is also a client! Needless to say, we spent most of out allotted meeting time blabbing like long-lost friends! It’s a bit odd to meet someone who knows so much about me when I know only her name, job title and Microsoft office number, but we intend to remedy that soon when we meet for lunch or coffee next week.

Yes, I took a photo, but I refuse to publish it (sorry Cathy) because I look like an overworked chipmunk. (Cathy, however, looks great!)

But I promise you, this actually happened!

So tonight when I pass Cathy’s project to our production team in Mumbai, I’ll ask them to treat it with just a slight extra flair because this new client is, after all, also a dear new friend!

This is exactly what I needed after last weeks “why do I blog?” whine.

We lost LoLo

I came home to very sad news today:

Lois was Elisabeth and Peter’s babysitter for a period of about four years when we lived in LA in the mid-80’s.  I was working at Disney when LoLo joined our family and later, after Peter was born, I had my own educational software design company that I ran from home.  During those years LoLo came to our home each day and loved my children to pieces.

     

Lois adored Elisabeth (known then, before she insisted on going by her middle name, as “Erin”) and Peter, and they adored her.  Somehow she was able to clean my house from top to bottom while giving complete, doting attention to my children – cooking with them, doing art projects with them, reading to them, and holding them lovingly for hours on end… often while vacuuming or doing laundry. 

Lolo was magical and she had a magical influence on my oldest two children during a period in their lives that they now barely remember, but that she touched profoundly.

Larry, her loving husband is so right: she WILL be missed.