Lest you think I’ll be lazing around on my week off…

The coming Friday is my last day at my current job.  It has been a frenetic and intense two years of 12 to 16-hour days managing at least 100 Microsoft marketing projects, each with up to 50 individual components, across at least 25 different Microsoft business units for clients who ranged from reasonable and friendly to unreasonable and unfriendly and I am weary, burned-out, and bone-tired.  It is only fair to both myself and to my new employer to take a week out to clear my head, rejuvenate my spirit, and focus in a whole new direction before jumping into my first day of work later this month.

While figuratively purging the Microsoft-induced mess from my head during my week off, I will be literally purging some messes around the house.  Normally I give the garage a good cleaning about once a year, but last year both my broken ankle and my brutal job kept me from doing much maintenance around the house.

So next week I plan to be busy taking care of a few things around here:

Bills need to be paid…

…a thick file of paperwork, bills, and insurance documents related to my broken ankle need to be organized and (hallelujah!) filed away…

…and two years worth of bills and paperwork (yes, those three boxes are all filled with to-be-filed paperwork) need to be filed into the physical cabinet.  I know… it’s the German in me that makes me hold onto and file physical documents when I know quite well that I probably don’t need to hold on to 90% of this stuff.

Then of course, there’s these important things that need to be done ASAP:

(Seriously, does anyone really feel this way about taxes?!)

And this, times three:

Once I finish all that paperwork and filing, there’s a garage that desperately needs attention – especially after three kids came home from college for the summer and left furniture and household items here after moving to the Greek system or moving into houses with friends.  Oh lordy, lordy – look what awaits me:

My blood pressure rises just looking at that mess… and then falls again at the thought of it cleaned, purged, and organized (and no, I do not want the kids’ “help” doing this stuff!)!

Then there are a few closets in the house that need attention…

…and some bedrooms that, with a little consolidating and spiffing, could pretty easily be made guest-ready:

Then there’s a deck that needs replacing…

…and a roof that I might as well just say is one of those “green” roofs because -- well, it is!  Ah, life in the Pacific Northwest…

Actually, just kidding on those last two, which are definitely out of my realm and into Tom’s.  Or maybe they’re into the realm of we-pay-someone-to-do-it-and-thereby-get-it-done-in-a-fraction-of-the-time.  Yeah, I think that’s the ticket on the deck and the roof!

Tom’s plenty busy doing stuff like this, replacing the track lighting in the living room with fraction-of-the-cost LED lights that I like a fraction-of-the-amount that I like the “normal” lights that were there.

 

So that’s my to-do list for next week.  Do me a favor and keep after me, because you know what I’ll want to do all week? 

THIS:

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!