The next holiday for us to celebrate is Easter - a sure sign of spring, rebirth.
I have already purchased Easter cards, chocolate bunnies, Cadbury eggs and peeps for the boys and yesterday I took the time to decorate each room in the house with bunnies and chicks. To me the decorations will state that winter is over and that we will enjoy the days getting warmer.
Here it is the last day of March and I still have not seen once crocus or daffodil on any lawn or front yard. This just goes to show how bad this winter has been that these hardy and early blooming flowers are staying underground.
Hopefully with some days this coming week to record temperatures in the 60's there will be a balance to the Earth. Come on spring - think like the little train, I think I can, I think I can.
I always turn my mattress twice a year when I do my spring and fall cleaning; but, this time I did something different - I also turned the box spring!!!
Can I tell you what a difference it has made - I have been able to sleep through the night without having to get up and go to the bathroom; okay maybe that has nothing to do with the box spring. But, certainly sleeping a little over 7 hours last night must be due to the box spring.
The mattress and box
spring are almost 10 years old - since it is only me who sleeps on them regularly there is no abuse of it; and, even when Callum comes over he does not jump on the bed.
I honestly thought I was going to have to buy a new mattress and I am so glad that a small fix such as turning the box spring could make such a difference in my sleep.
Today I will be doing some of the things I enjoy the most, seeing a Broadway show, having Alaskan King Crab legs for dinner and doing it all with one of my very best friends.
I enjoy seeing a Broadway show - my childhood aspiration was to be a Broadway star and to sing and dance on the stage - well we all know that never transpired. So therefore I have a healthy admiration and love of Broadway.
Cinderella when it came out on television in the 1960's was one of my favorite shows - I loved the music and I understand that the scenery and costumes in this production are phenomenal.
Afterwards my friend, Catherine and I will go to City Lobster & Steak and enjoy their Alaskan King Crab legs with a glass of wine for dinner. This is not something we do very often; but, every 6 months or so we go into the city and enjoy a show and a nice dinner.
This is a treat - like I said something I don't do very often; but, a luxury for me despite getting the tickets at a discounted price.
Yesterday I completed the final arrangements for vacation.
I will be going away during spring break with Gerard, Ryan and Callum. This will be a vacation that focuses on Callum so we will be at Disneyworld for a day then on Disney's Magic as we cruise to the Bahamas and then upon coming back one more day at Disneyworld before heading home.
This was a difficult one to put together between flights, resorts to stay at, park tickets and ensuring that everything was synced to the new Disney Magic Bands - I was on the telephone with the Disney Vacation Club several times.
I have been on the website ensuring that I have everyone listed, that I have registered the boys for the children's club and now to determine whether we should do Fast Pass for any of the rides.
I am looking forward to this - the warmth, the ability to have someone pick up after me and to simply relax after dealing with some difficult personal issues.
I have always been very proud of my hands - they are extremely young looking EXCEPT I am now showing a very tell tale sign of getting older.
My right pointer finger is showing signs of arthritis at the top knuckle - this is extremely upsetting to me as my hands are the youngest looking part of my body. Thankfully it is at this point only that one finger and maybe someone might consider that it may have been broken at some point in my lifetime.
Is it awful to realize that our age shows in various parts of our body - we should embrace it and understand that it tells the story of our life, its trials and tribulations.
I have my new iPhone 5s and I really enjoy it; but, I am haphazardly receiving calls on it and the rest are going directly to voicemail.
For the second time I have been on the phone with Verizon Wireless advising them that I am missing phone calls from my boss, my team, business colleagues and friends. The phone is sitting right next to me and it doesn't ring - it is when I go to do something on it that I notice that I have missed several phone calls.
In my last call with Verizon it appears that my cell phone is losing connectivity with the network - I have never heard of anything like this. It is now 4 days since we figured out that this is the issue and it was given to their Technical team to investigate and resolve and I still have not heard anything.
I am hoping that since I am receiving sporadic phone calls that they are getting closer to the root cause; or am I being Pollyanna again??!!
I spent this morning looking at my calendar for the next month.
I will be on PTO for a little bit of time in April and it requires me to move some meetings around, looking at other folk's calendars and sending meeting updates.
Do you realize how much is on your calendar on a daily basis? From a personal and professional level it is quite a bit and each one of them requires you to touch it, delete it, re-schedule it and to provide reasons and responses.
When did it become so complicated to take some time off?
The ability for people to schedule your time has been tantamount to your day no longer being your own. Thankfully we have the ability to "accept, tentatively accept or decline".
Maybe there is some truth to needing less sleep or rest as you get older - at least I hope that is what is happening.
Of late I cannot seem to sleep more than 4 1/2 to 5 hours per night, when that would happen in the past I would end up falling asleep in the middle of the day. Or at times I could be asleep by 8 at night.
Nowadays it doesn't seem to matter how much I have done during the day in exercise, cleaning or any other manner of things and I am not tired during the day, I cannot fall asleep during the day and nor can I sleep beyond 6 in the morning.
I do know that to rest I have to have a quiet mind - that seems elusive at the moment; maybe, sometime soon.
The house looks brighter, lighter and I love it.
Yesterday away went the burgundy and the brown and out came the creams, lilacs and spring green in rugs, comforter, throw pillows and towels. As it was a sunny day it felt good to see the light come through the curtains and into the rooms.
I managed to do every room except the kitchen. Since they are calling for temperatures back into the 30's I have decided to leave the lined curtains on the French doors to keep out some of that cold. I will change out those curtains next week - when I also put out the Easter towels and potholders.
I also have three bags that I will drop off at Goodwill, so I have begun the de-clutter process and the curtains and rugs that need to be cleaned and stored at the cleaners.
Since yesterday was a very hectic day with all the changes I made and re-arranging the storage boxes so that Easter decorations are at my finger tips. Today I will relax after my Zumba class - I think I have earned it.
Last night spring cleaning began at the house.
It will probably take me about 2 weeks to do everything that I want as not only do I plan to clean; but, also to de-clutter. I began last night with the upstairs rooms by changing comforters, rugs and curtains.
Over the weekend I will do the same with the downstairs rooms so that come Monday morning the house will be in spring colors. What I will then focus on is going through every draw and closet and either keeping, donating or throwing out items. This will be a massive de-clutter event that I will have done before Spring Break when I will go away with Gerard and the Boys.
I want to enjoy my patio this coming summer and having done all of this within the next two weeks will allow me to focus time on the outside of my house and my enjoyment of it.
The time invested up front is what will enable the enjoyment at the end.
Yesterday was the first day of Spring and it definitely showed a promise of the warm weather and sunshine that will surely come.
The next few days through the weekend are supposed to be gorgeous and will lull us into thinking that winter is over and we can begin to put away our snow shoes and down parkas and bring out the flip flops and shorts. But, don't!!!
It appears that Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor - she is looking to give us some more snow next Tuesday into Wednesday. As of yet they have not determined if this is a "plowable" storm or just a dusting.
Mother Nature - by now I think we know how powerful you are - can you stop torturing us?!?
I am battling a tickle in my throat and sniffling throughout the day - with a healthy sneeze every now and then.
This all means one thing - I am catching a cold. I cannot stand being sick and a cold is a nuisance. For one I will need to have a throat lozenge in my mouth all day and night so that I can stop the scratchy feeling in my throat. Secondly, a box of tissues will be by my side as even though I blow my nose invariably at some point it will drip. Lastly, it makes my brain and mind feel achy and I am not as sharp as I like to be.
The upside is that it will only last a couple of days and I should be to my old self by the weekend.
Yesterday wasn't that great a day - but, as I have been called Pollyanna I tried to find those things that I marveled at and enjoyed.
The first thing I noticed was the full moon as I left and drove to the office at 6AM, I marveled that there was no traffic and I was the first one in the office. My 9AM meeting although overwhelming with information - also left me feeling elated because the individual agreed that we could build employees into the capitol budget to support the new facility. And on the way home the sun was bright and it felt warm - letting me hope that spring might truly be around the corner.
By focusing on these positives I hope to diminish the importance of the negatives, maybe I am wrong, but I do want to believe that inherently people are generally good.
Yesterday I had to mail a letter that has left me with that terrible pain in the pit of your stomach.
It had to be done; but, it was not an easy decision or something that I enjoyed doing. It will most definitely cause a schism in the family and I realized that when I made the final decision of what to do.
We all have to make decisions like this - it is the hardest thing in the world that you will ever do. Life isn't easy and at some point in time you have to stand up for what is right and what is good for you.
Yesterday I needed to apply the time management skills that I use in the office to my kitchen to get everything done that I wanted to for St. Patrick's Day dinner.
We needed to go to the bakery and pick up the carrot cake I had ordered and then it was to the grocery store to buy the salad items and the beef for the Steak and Guinness pie. Finally home by 12 noon and I was going to start my first bread.
Both breads take an hour to bake and I was also going to make an Irish apple cake that takes 45 minutes to bake. My strategy was to prep the other item while one was in the oven. That worked and I was also able to wash dishes in between and make the salad.
Once I had the steak and Guinness pot pie simmering I was able to sit down for a couple of hours.
I somehow am always very ambitious for these dinners; and, thankfully seem to be gettign better at managing it.
Today I will cook St. Patrick's day dinner for my family - although totally not traditional.
Most people will have corn beef and cabbage; but, since i don't like either and I cannot stand the aroma I instead will make Steak and Guinness pie, beer bread, brown bread, salad and the ultimate Irish apple cake.
As usual I will probably make more than the 4 to 5 of us can eat; but, Gerard will be able to take it home and have it during the week.
This will be our March family dinner - and I know they will enjoy the food and the thought put behind it.
I feel as if the last few days Murphy has been visiting me - okay you can leave now, I am not being hospitable any longer.
Yesterday three things occurred; all calls to my cell phone were going to voicemail, the hazard lights on my car all of a sudden were on and my land line telephone had no dial tone. REALLY!!!
First thing was to get on the line with Verizon wireless - they needed to reset my network settings on my phone and I did the same on the phone - okay working. Then my next door neighbor, Bill knocked on my door to advise me that my hazard lights were on. How did that happen? I had not been in my car since I parked it on Wednesday evening. How did the hazard lights just go on by themselves? Lastly, on the phone with Optimum to find out why I had not dial tone on my phone, they had to reset the modem.
Okay Murphy, I am done with you. You are wreaking havoc on my productivity and you can now visit someone else.
Okay I have already told you that I am technically challenged - so my latest dilemma was trying to get my iPad and my new iPhone onto my home wifi.
I thought I new what my security code was; but, each time I entered it I still could not "Join". I have a service contract with the Geek Squad so I took my chances and called them. I immediately received a Level 2 agent who helped me as much as she could, before she handed me off to Level 3 she established a remote connection so that the agent could just start typing and working on my issue.
We got the iPhone and iPad to join my router by his doing some configurations and then re-booting the router. I was happy with just that; but, then he stated that my computer could use a clean up and tuning - I let him do it as long as none of my work files were compromised. Thirty minutes later my computer is optimized, de-fragmented and working better than ever.
My issue: so what did the Help Desk technician do to my computer on Tuesday when I was in the office and he had it for over two hours?
All I can recommend is if you are not technically savvy and you don't have anyone who can do this - then invest in a service contract with the Geek Squad.
Yesterday was Wednesday so I was in the New York City office; because there is a training class going on many of the individuals who come in on Wednesday didn't.
I was amazed at how much I got done, how quiet the facility was and how I was actually able to think. I absconded my boss's office and sat and worked from 8:30 to 5PM, I had a couple of conference calls - that is typical; but, I was also able to get a report done for one of our Executives, to review a status report and to read through a proposal.
I generally get that done when I work from home; however, lately I have been getting solicitation calls starting at 8AM that go right through 8:45 at night - not only do they occur on my home land line; but, also on my mobile.
I cherish the days that I can hear my brain think, process the information and provide some good insight to my team, peers, boss, vendor and clients.
Peace and quiet - do not underestimate its necessity.
I am the first person to admit that i am technology challenged even though I wok with it on a daily basis.
So not only has my iPhone died, so was my laptop on its last leg as it took over 20 minutes to load a document onto it. I was so excited to be in the office today because the Help Desk was sending a technician to look at my laptop, update Symantec and potentially re-image it so that it would work faster.
Also, my new iPhone 5s had been ordered and was due to arrive today; but, first I needed to back up everything on it; specifically, photos and some text messages. One of my team members helped me back everything up to the "cloud" - and then told me that when I got home to back it up on my personal computer to my iTunes account.
Back from lunch with my team and my computer is working like a charm. My new iPhone 5s had arrived, I turned it on and 'lo and behold' everything that I had backed up in the cloud was on my new phone. I had never had anything like that happen before. I got home went on my personal computer and was able to back up my iPhone data to my iTunes account.
I am so impressed - this has never happened before where it was so seamless - quick and non-intrusive. A good day technology wise - so I am HAPPY.
Last week I noticed that I was missing all the calls that people were making to my cell phone - I couldn't understand why.
So one day I called my cell from my land line and the call went through - but, then the next day I started missing all my calls again and was being inundated with voicemail messages. On Friday after missing several calls from my Boss I called a team member of mine who gave me the information to call Verizon and see what was wrong.
They assisted me and I finally was able to see the call coming through on my screen; next to see if it would ring - we tried two more times and the Verizon representative determined that my speaker was dead. Good news is that I was due for an upgrade and I am now getting an iPhone 5s which should be here in a couple of days.
I need to transfer some text messages that are on my old phone and luckily I have a team member who will help me do this today.
Now as I can at times be technically challenged, I will spend the next few days trying to figure out how to use this new phone. Oh well.
One thing I am very good at is being organized; both in my personal and professional life.
I am glad that I am that organized and there are some things that I have kept over the years - specifically my cancelled checks and my bank statements. Last night I had to put together a letter and a spreadsheet and it was imperative that I had all this documentation with date, amounts and reason.
It was not a pleasant letter to write, but it had to be done and having the documentation just makes it a transaction and nothing more.
At 2AM this morning we changed our clocks forward so that we could "spring ahead".
Yesterday I went through the house changing the clocks in every room. What is funny is that the majority of them do not have the same time on them - each is different depending upon what room it is in and what I am looking to do.
In my bedroom there is a battery alarm clock, a plug in alarm clock and the clock on the cable box. I know the cable box is set correctly while the battery is 15 minutes fast and the plug in is 8 minutes fast. Yes, I psych myself out.
All of the clocks were changed except the Bose on the shelf between the living and dining rooms. It can only be changed by the remote control - I had problems in October wiith the remote control and it turned out that the battery was dead, I had it changed. Can the battery have really died again in 6 months?
Today I will go out and get another battery and change the time on the Bose. Then all will be right with the world.
For the past couple of weeks I am wondering where is the time and my day going?
While I work remotely I find that my days just run away from me - believe me I am not anywhere but on my laptop, cellphone, telephone and on various conference calls. I find that I get on my computer between 7 to 7:30 in the morning and I am still on at 8 at night.
Some days I am doing a catch up - especially if I have been in the office and in meetings all day. I try to get back to individuals on the same day - I hate it when it is 2 or 3 days later before I have responded.
This weekend I will be on the computer - but - I need to focus on some personal things; and, not on work.
Last night I was a panelist at an event in downtown Manhattan on digital media.
First let me say that the event was wonderful, my co-panelists were amazing and it was good to hear what other companies are focusing on and struggling with. The venue a loft in NOHO (North of Houston St.) was an industrial loft and the grand opening of the company's New York location. It is what you would expect of a New York loft with ducts and brick walls.
But, the amazing part of this was that I re-connected with many people who I have done business with in the last 20 years. For as large as the industry is in conferencing/collaboration/digital media - it really is a small community; and, in some aspects it was a little of old home week.
I enjoy catching up with folks I have not seen or heard from in many years - it is great to see how people have evolved, how our values and motivation has changed.
I am proud to be part of a community that as we mature, learn more about the work we do - we look to see how we can use it to enrich other people's lives. As a community that is our legacy.
In July my laptop is going to be three years old and it is starting to show its age.
There is no rhyme or reason but beginning last Friday afternoon I could not get Kronos to show the different menu items - Kronos is our time keeping program and how we are paid. On Monday morning I spoke to our Help Desk and after their attempting to make it work the only way the menu items would show up is if after I loaded the program I would do a refresh. Okay I guess I could live with that - they were going to have the Kronos specialist contact me.
I missed the specialists call and called him back - I received his Supervisor who said he would help me and "lo and behold" when I log into Kronos all is good. Is Murphy around?
Next, Symantec needs to be updated on my laptop - well it appears that it cannot be done remotely. They will need to have a couple of hours with my laptop after removing over 1500 temporary files this past Tuesday, next Tuesday they will install the new Symantec; as well as, re-image my laptop.
I will be without my laptop for about 3 hours next Tuesday - it will be difficult as I am so tied to it; but, hopefully after all is done it will survive - at least for another 6 months.
I am usually good about staying up on my emails, my responses and reading the various proposals that come across my desk.
But not in the past week - beginning the middle of last week I was out at site surveys and client meetings and not able to read the various proposals and email requests coming across my laptop. It was also performance review time so it was necessary to schedule time with my team members and conduct their review.
In my email where proposals, quotes and much more that required responses. As I only had one meeting in the office on Tuesday which was set up as an in person and a web ex I opted to work from home to see if I could catch up on some of these items. It was a good choice as my Boss called me at 9AM asking me to cancel the Staff meeting.
I may work from home on Wednesday too and read a very lengthy, comprehensive proposal and determine how I present to my management. It is easier for me to focus on these things at home than in the office. Wednesday is New York City day and I have a meeting at 9AM and 10AM that are also available via web ex - I will take them that way.
Hopefully by the end of Wednesday I will be caught up, feel that I am back in control of my workload and be prepared for the meetings I have on Thursday.
I don't know why yesterday I couldn't seem to get warm enough; but, I was freezing.
During the day I keep the temperature set at 66 degrees; but, I have a heater not far from me to warm up the area that I am working in. But, yesterday even with the heater at high, a pair of sweatpants, a turtleneck and wool socks with lined slippers I was still very cold.
I am not looking forward to today where the temperature is supposed to be brutal through the evening. Give me some 30 to 40 degree temperatures; but, with no wind.
This coming weekend we move our clocks forward for Spring ahead - can we get the weather to also Spring ahead?!?!
Most nights I just want to go to bed, fall asleep and stay asleep all night until the alarm goes off in the morning.
Not last night. It was the Oscar Awards and this past year there were many categories where there was no clear winner. I usually am asleep halfway through it and wake up at the very end to find out what won Best Picture.
I did nap for about 30 minutes in the afternoon - not sure if that will help me stay awake or not. Ellen DeGeneres is quite funny and I will enjoy her; however, it is the long speeches that make this program so long and draining.
But it is Hollywood's night and this year especially there are an incredible number of great movies and performances. Each one in their own should receive the Academy Award.
It was time to remove the Valentine's decor and change the house to reflect that it is March and St. Patrick's day is coming.
I decided to also put away some of the snowmen and other items that reflected winter and I wanted to have it all done in an hour. That meant putting things all on one table, opening cabinets, bending and fitting things - well just after I put some things away in a bottom cabinet I got up and clocked my head on the upper cabinet doors.
OWW - that hurt. I thought that I had cut myself because that is how much it hurt - I hadn't but I have a nice lump. No, I didn't put ice on it - I probably should have and I did have a slight headache.
I certainly will remember this the next time I change the house around again - in another month for Easter.
