Sunshine & Edits

There is something about springtime in Washington DC that fills the entire world with hope.  Or at least the part of the world that has a chance to be in DC and is willing to give hope a chance.

Winter in Washington is never fun for more than 2 or 3 weeks.  Usually we have just that to get the various Christmas trees up and lit and the Nutcracker  sold out in its annual performances before the gray begins to get to us.  

This weekend is the Cherry Blossom Festival.  The trees are decked out, the sun is shining, and we are sneezing.  But still we are called to drive around top down. 

You can safely drive around top down in this area for exactly 7 weeks out of the entire 52.  They aren't all fit together.  Some happen in Spring - when it isn't raining, some happen in the summer - when it isn't so sweltering hot that you want nothing more to peel off everything you have on and run screaming naked through the streets, and then there are those glorious moments in the autumn when it is sunny, crisp and cool but not so cool that you can't throw on a jacket and challenge the air.

Of course, it was such long weekend in October that brought on the worst sick I've had in a couple of years...but who wants to remember these things?

So yesterday the sun graced us and the wind was not so bad that it could compete with the wind of top down driving.  We took the new car out for a spin.  First to Manassas to pick up Beau from the vet.  He was supposed to return to us newly suitable for continued apartment living but alas, still he fights some sort of infection from his barn living tribulations.  So we will take him back in a few weeks to try again.

Then we headed down for a quick visit with my family.  A stop into my sister's place revealed that she shares my opinion of laundry and is beyond grateful for my mother's help in this.  My mother watches my niece and nephew during the week so that my sister and brother-in-law are able to work.  For this she is paid a modest sum and everyone rests easier knowing the children are well cared for.

A pop over to my parents house meant that we visited briefly, my father handed me a book he'd bought a case of and thought I should read and then share with the most liberal friend that I have.  I thanked him, told him I'd read it but that I'd not be sharing this book with my friend and if he wanted her to read it he could enter that territory on his own.  

A stop back up to the end of the driveway took us over to my other sister's house where my brother is staying while she and her family are in England.  It was an unexpected visit but my brother is an unexpected man so I was reasonably sure we'd be welcomed...and we were.  As we walked into the house we saw immediately that he had been hard at work fixing what needs to be fixed given the previous tenants (the family who rented it from my sister first) and some then current but now unfortunate decorating decisions made by my sister several years back.  

My brother and I talked politics, about the government, and our feelings about the general state of the country at the moment.  Then I told him that he was a good man for taking care of our sister in this way.  He wants to give back to the family that I'm not sure has treated him fairly in his life.  I could see a moment of pain pass over his face and then he was resolute again.  He would do this for our sister.  Even as I remember that momentary expression I feel a surge of anger pass over me.  For this she'd better not be charging him rent.  Knowing him, he'd pay it and still give up what he had to do this kind thing for her.

A final visit to my pregnant with identical twin boys sister-in-law and my pixie'ish neice rounded out our evening and our visit home.  We caught them just as my SIL was try to wrestle her daughter into bed.  My niece will be three in June and if she keeps going the way she's going my brother is going to have to re-think his views on gun ownership.  Of the entire family, it may be this brother and his wife with whom we feel the most kinship, if for no other reason than there is a fair bit of wanderlust in the both of us.  My sister-in-law is an artist and in her home you see bits and pieces of whimsy developing.  I can't wait to see what they've come up with when the remodeling is finished.

Over the past few days I've been struggling with whether to go back and edit the various typos that appear in my blogs.  I write "stream of thought" and quickly - and the end result is sometimes imperfect but always me.  

Sort of like my family.

So I'm not going to edit my previous posts.  Because even though they are imperfect, they are fine just the way they are...and just like my family.  

NL

Multi-Tasking

I've taken to drinking VAST quantities of SlimFast. Not for the "slim" part - as evidenced by the fact I drink it with whole milk - but for the "fast" part, because it is literally a way of shoving nutrients down my throat while I continue to work or go to meetings (which aren't always one and the same.) Having to stop to eat seems like such a waste of precious time when there are things I'd much rather be doing...like working...which I actually enjoy.

This weekend I brought work home with me. Due to timing and promises I'm writing like the wind in order to get the proposal tossed back into the client's hands record time.

But we'd originally set the weekend aside to go car shopping. Could we do both?

We did. So as of 3 pm this afternoon one 40+ page proposal written and sent off for input & edit, 8 cars looked at, 5 cars test driven, and one car purchased.

The sun came out. The new car, a convertible, was just itching for a run topless and, since it was raining when we test drove it off the showroom floor, it was first introduction for us as well. We felt like Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. I couldn't get my scarf on for all the blowing wind. My daughter announced it was okay but she still hates convertibles and I am left wondering "how can she be MY daughter?"

The sun ducked away and the temperatures plummeted. We stopped at Starbucks for hot coffee, bought the car it's first CD, put the top up, and headed home.

On the way home we dodged a man driving what I think was a Nissan Sentra - green - and I got a good look at him as he raced along his lane and tried to be exactly where we were...in OUR lane.

And there he was, driving too fast and typing on his blackberry.

Multi-tasking.

There was a moment on Friday when I was in a meeting with a member of my team and a client (who was on the phone) and at the same time I was running staffing numbers - unrelated to the conversation. There have been so many times in the past few months when I have stretched the very limits of my innate ability to multi-task and usually, like a good run, I'm tired but I feel good about it.

I wonder if the man who very nearly ran a family of three (and their new car) off the road also feels good about his ability to multi-task.

My friend Connie posted the following link about a police officer who had an accident while texting. It made me go hmmmmm.....

So like Ecc. 3:1 there really is a time and a place for everything - even multi-tasking. I'm going to pray every day that I never lose sight of that.

Well, and that the man who was texting while driving doesn't hurt anyone but himself.

And maybe, if I find time to do this, I'll start publishing the license plates of people who do truly stupid stuff like that.

NL

.72 on the 1.00

It seems that lately all I do is whine, whine, whine about how busy I've been.

I don't know why, when someone asks how I've been, I feel compelled to tell them that I am busy. It isn't really something I need to explain given the fact that most of these same people have noticed I'm not emailing back right away, my blog has been neglected for nearly a month, a week goes by between Facebook log-ins, and the best place to reach me between the hours of 8:30 am and 8:00 pm are at my office phone.

I also don't know why I'm whining. The fact is that I'm busy because I love my job and the work that I do and, for the most part, the people that I work with. I'm busy because I choose to be.

That doesn't mean that I haven't had my issues to deal with. A week ago today I got an email which I read, yes on a Sunday, from a colleague who was taking the opportunity to lambast me for not being "a team player." For having an expertise that apparently he doesn't have and he needs in order to win some work and build his practice.

I got mad. But I got mad because I was feeling a little bit guilty because I knew he wanted us to do this and I just DID NOT HAVE TIME to help. I held my tongue.

Then on Monday morning it hit me...how does a Sr. Consultant in Emergency Management NOT have this expertise? In short, knowledge in the area which I had, but apparently he did not, is much like someone who is an expert in Literature being expected to be familiar with Shakespeare. Frankly, it's a given. You have it because you just DO.

On Tuesday I was in a meeting with him and another colleague - a man I find pleasant but not particularly innovative or capable - and I was fighting like mad to get mid-year boosts for 3 folks on my team who have earned it. As a list of all three of our staffs sat in front of us, there - not hidden from view - were our salaries as well.

I know these men make more than I do and usually I'm okay with it. In an economy like this, I like the protection of having high value for dollar. But with recent changes my team is nearly twice the size of both of their's combined and pulls nearly twice as much revenue as well.

And the man who'd decided to rip me a new one on Sunday, it turns out, makes $32K more a year than I do.

Which hit home when my sister, who got a raise this week, told me today that she's trying to make the company take it back because she doesn't want to be priced out of the market. She thinks she's not worth it. And as I lectured her I realized that somehow - maybe because we are women - we are actually "ok" with making less money than our male counterparts. Even when they don't work nearly as hard as we do or contribute nearly as much.

So here's the truth - we shouldn't be making 28 cents per dollar less than our male counterparts. But maybe it isn't that we're underpaying women. Maybe, as is clearly the case of both of these colleagues of mine, we are overpaying some of these men.

Right now it's okay because I am very busy...out performing them 4 to 1. And I like being just that much better than them - because I am a woman and I am ROARING. :)

But maybe something to think about longer term...so that my daughter inherits a better workplace for women than I did.


NL

Greying

Two Christmases ago my mother looked at me and said "you are getting grey hair. I am too young for you to have grey hair. Do something about it."

My mother's hair is light brown, as it has been for more than a decade when her hairdresser suggested a change from her previous platinum blond. I'm relatively certain that I have never seen her "real" hair color.

I was blessed with my father's coloring, which included the auburn brown hair that actually looks brown until the sun (or stage) light hits it. Then it is a flaming blaze of autumn that bears out the Scots/Irish in our blood.

My favorite part of getting my hair cut is the moment the hair dresser, in the process of blowing it out, exclaims "oh my it really *is* curly...and beautiful." I can promise you it wasn't that way when I walked in. I almost always enter the salon looking like a homeless woman. I don't know why. I just do.

My hair is now its natural color. Long gone are the days when I would make it darker or lighter or more red. It has gotten lighter as I've aged and the red is still there but no longer blazes with Irish fury in the sun.

Instead it is turning grey. The single streak that rested down my right cheek, a gift from my ex-husband's harrowing aneurysm adventure, has been joined by scattered white threads throughout my hair. It appears that it will not be turning a true grey but instead will become a silvery white.

For a moment yesterday I considered coloring it. But I know that matching my natural color is an almost impossible task and the maintenance of haircolor would become yet one more thing to fit into an already busy schedule.

So this morning, after re-straightening my hair, I picked up a strand that had fallen and wondered how strong it was. It must be very strong I think for it has come from a head of many adventures.

Somehow that grey hair did not make me feel old or as if my life will be drawing to a close soon. Instead it reminded me of the woman I am still becoming. The woman I hope to be.

I am going to go grey and I am not going to fight it. I've earned that right.


NL

Presents and Rules = Ruckus

I grew up in a house with five kids, two adults, 1 bathroom and 4 bedrooms.

My mother had one bedroom. My father had one bedroom. The other two bedrooms and were shared by me and my two sisters and my two brothers, respectively.

When I was young the fact that my parents each had their own bedroom seemed odd to me. Once I'd been married for a few years, to a man who snored, I fully appreciated the sanity in separate beds. With walls.

Ours was a house with rules.

Ours was a house that, in addition to seven people, also included a dog and cat.

The dog was allowed in the house but not upstairs.

The cat was not allowed in the house.

That didn't stop us.

One morning we'd snuck the dog upstairs while my father was sleeping. I think he probably knew and wasn't saying anything but at the time we thought we were being sneaky and enjoying dog time. There the dog lay, on a bed (shhhh, don't tell Dad) enjoying the petting from five sneaky kids when the cat, noticing the open window, decided to deliver a present.

It was fresh.

It was so fresh it was still alive and wiggling in her mouth.

The dog spotted the cat, the cat dropped the bird, the dog went tearing after the cat, the cat hightailed it down the stairs and the bird began to fly frantically around the bedroom while five kids dove around trying to catch the bird and get to the dog and cat to shoo them outside - all the while praying that Dad didn't wake up and catch us.

No dice.

Within moments we heard my father's roar - "What the HELL is going on up there."

Cripes.

I think it was my brother, Jon, who managed to get the door open and put on an innocent face. I know for sure it was me who caught the bird because I still remember having to crawl under the bed to get it.

"FRONT AND CENTER"

Oh, we'd heard that before. The five of us lined up in front of my father, sure we were in for it.

But somehow the humour must have been enough for my father. Because although I clearly remember the sequence of events, I'm pretty sure we didn't get in trouble.

However, from that point forward when ever we snuck the dog up stairs we made sure the window was closed.


NL