Phrosty!

I'm PHREEZING and not happy. With layers and layers I barely stay warm (another sign that maybe the thyroid isn't working as it should?). Outside, it's a beautiful winter day - 53d and clear - and I don't want to go out into it because it's too darned cold!

Internally, things are better today than the other day. Still not thrilled with those things about which I can do nothing, so I'm alternately complaining about them and ignoring them. They still aren't going away but the complaining helps me come to terms, to wrap my brain around the enormity of the problem.

Some of my good news faded a bit. The carpet has been delayed because the truck the material is on is stuck somewhere east of here. Darned weather! Now it looks like next week - which creates the interesting problem of how to rearrange all the stuff in the small space we have to free the packed cube.

See, the person who usually sits in the cube currently filled with three credenzas and a conference table blocking it will be back Monday. I'm pretty sure she'd like to be able to use her desk. Just thinkin'.

Originally, the carpet was supposed to be installed tomorrow. Then I learned this morning that the carpet won't be here until next week - the seventh. After some backing-and-forthing I got it moved to the sixth. Yee haw. Then I threatened the sales person that if her installer isn't here on the sixth for any reason, I expect her here in her blue jeans and we'll install it ourselves!

Happily next week is still quiet after the holidays. The week after, though, is when things pick up again - meetings in the conference room that's currently standing empty.

Well, I'm determined. I'm going to buy a furniture dolly:

That's so I can move things around as needed without having to wait for other people to be available. One person can move mountains with one of those - stick it under the supporting panel of a conference table, lift the other end and, voila! You can move it all by yourself. Same with credenzas and weighted file cabinets.

Still have to get my Gantt chart worked out. That's hanging in the background and making me nervous. I know what's going to happen. I'm going to get caught up in other things, priorities and "must-dos" and it's going to languish until past the last minute. Then I'll be caught doing the ol' "huminah, huminah, huminah" that Jackie Gleason made famous on the Honeymooners.

I did get a good start, then got bogged down, distracted, dragged away to other things, more other things, and more, and now it's two weeks past when I wanted it to be done and it's still not finished. Bills. Entry. Then Gantt chart. That's the story. The Stack will wait. It's been there for a while, growing and diminishing, dependent upon time and things, so I'll get to that when I get to it.

After all, with The Stack, I have pawed through it often enough that I have some idea what's in there. It's just not organized and put away. Entered into my database, for instance, and files created.

I also have to re-figure some of my filing. I have a group of files that have too much important information on the tabs. It's all important information, but there is so much - specific document name (they're grouped by type) and number, country (which goes back to the Japanese / Taiwanese / Chinese / Korean conundrum I wrote about yesterday), firm name and file number. It's going to be an interesting challenge. Unless I want to set up a cross-reference system of some sort, which I'd rather not do.

Exciting times, aren't they?

I think they are and, in fact, I think they're so exciting I'm going to stop this and get back to them.

Have a lovely day and I hope you're enjoying yourself, too!

Best~
Philippa

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Ya Know - I'm Having Fun

Again, it's all little things - just the small stuff that comes along in a day that makes it worth getting out of bed.

Last night I went home feeling lousy. My legs hurt as if I'd done about a billion squats - the long muscles in my thighs, from skin through to bone. I felt like a kinda sorta wanted to kneel before the porcelain princess in the loo, but wasn't queasy enough to make the trip. I just felt like crap - and like I wanted to curl up in the nearest corner and sleep.

There's a bug going around and I got in its way. It flattened me - first on the sofa at about 6:45 last night, and then in bed from about 8:30. Sleeping all night straight is unheard of for me, but I did. Between the getting up from the sofa at 8:30 and collapsing into the bed was no more than about ten minutes, and I was asleep as soon as I settled into position. I didn't wake up until the first alarm went off at 4:45. At the third alarm at 5:45 I debated, then sent an e-mail saying, pretty much, "you'll see me when you see me" and then I went to sleep again, and slept some more. In all, it was probably twelve hours. Not bad for me, since 6.5 is normal.

When I finally did manage to pry my eyes open at 7:30 I felt a lot better. The achiness in my legs was gone. The general malaise and yucky stuff had passed. I didn't have a fever, so it was good.

Getting to work I still felt like I'd left my brain on the pillow - 2+2 was an advanced mathematical formula at that point. Since then, though, I've started feeling better, more alert and think I can figure out 2+2. I might even be able to manage 3+3 or 4+4.

I solved a few problems that were lurking, then got a project out of the way. After that, I got started in on the growing pile of other stuff waiting.

I do have to say that, right now, I feel as if I'm standing at the bottom of a col in the Swiss Alps and there's an avalanche heading directly for me.

(Aside as a sanity check: yes, 'col' is a word. It means a narrow gap between two mountains - narrower than a pass.)

See? There's another cool word. I love words, but then I've mentioned that a time or two before. Another point in my favor today - I got to use a rarely used word. Yay me!

Back to that, though, it's coming in faster than I can process it, so the stack is growing and it's getting a bit scary. Of course, it is month-end, so that's part of it. At least I'm busy. That's a good thing, too.

We're supposed to get rain here tonight. Again, as I have for the past couple of years, I'll believe it when I see it, but 'they' keep talking about it. First, it was supposed to be rain - with an 'r'. Now they're saying sprinkles - with an 's'. A baby water-falling-from-the-sky event but at this point, we'll take whatever we can get.

It is cloudy outside right now.  What I don't get though is when people say "it looks like rain" or "it feels like rain". I hear that and it's a head scratcher.

Maybe because I'm from California and it's drier here, we don't get that heavy, damp feeling before a rain very much. When it's cloudy, it's cloudy and there are few times when it "feels" like rain. Sometimes, when the clouds are thick and heavy looking it will "look" like rain but, for me, because of how literal I am, unless it's actually a water-falling-from-the-sky event, it doesn't look or feel like rain. It's dry until it's not is an easier way of saying it.

But that's me and I'm not you so if you like saying 'it looks like' or 'it feels like' you go right on ahead. I'll ignore it and just smile, nod and maybe, if I'm so inclined, will say, 'yep, it sure does'.

The countdown to NaNo is getting shorter. My fingers are itching to cheat but my character is saying, 'no' even though I am starting to wonder how on Earth I'm going to get 50,000 words written in the time allowed, along with working full-time, commuting ten hours per week, and trying to have a home life with the family. I guess I'll just have to type really, really fast.

Another really nice gift from today is that I've been asked out to lunch tomorrow - in thanks for saving someone's bacon. They were doing something, it didn't go well, I stepped in and saved the day for them. In thanks, they're going to feed me. I love being fed, so I didn't say no, even though I did try the, 'oh, you don't have to do that!'.

So, the good things all lined up for today are:

Maybe some water falling from the sky
Being fed
Being upright without feeling like I'm about to fall over.
And I got to use the word 'col' in a sentence.

Yep. It's been a pretty darned good day. So, on that note, I hope your day was equally filled with little blessings and that your getting out of bed this morning was worthwhile.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

WHOOOOSH It Got Away!

This week has been nuts.

There was Monday's excitement about which I started to write yesterday.

Then yesterday raced by before I could get my post posted. It was ten o'clock at night and it still wasn't quite done, so I went to bed instead of finishing it. Now, here I am, doing my Wednesday post as an effective adjunct to yesterday's post which I just posted this morning. As I say, nuts.

Yesterday was still twenty-four hours long, right? It didn't shrink and become less time did it?

No, I didn't think so.

I guess it's a compendium of guilt for having missed work on Monday - to the tune of four hours. Having the compulsion to make up for lost time, and feeling like everything is spinning out of control, even though it really isn't out of control.

The other thing that's driving me is that I really don't like using accrued time off for this kind of stuff, even though I know that's what it's there for. I prefer using it for when I feel I really need it. Like when I've been beaten into submission by the flu and can hardly move for being so sick. That's when I think time off should be used. Not otherwise. Except for vacation.

After losing four hours on Monday - plus the fact that I was just a tad distracted and paying more attention to worry than to work - and knowing I'm going to lose another two hours tomorrow for my follow-up with the retinal specialist, I'm trying to make up for lost time. But I think that's another exercise in pushing water uphill.

Well, no matter. It's how I am and what I do. I worry and feel guilty and want to make my employer "whole" for my time. Call me an overachiever or anything else you choose. It's who I am and what I do.

So this morning, tomorrow and Friday I'll try to get to work earlier than usual, and I'll work a little later than usual, and do my best to get as close to forty hours this week as I can manage. And then I'll back-fill the missing time from my account. No matter. That's less than miniscule in the overall scheme of things. What's important is that all is well in my little corner of the world.

And what I went through in the past week speaks directly to why I would never do Lasik eye surgery. I have one set of eyes. They are not replaceable. They are delicate enough that a clumsy move can make my world dark in an instant. Losing one means I'm halfway to losing everything, and that doesn't interest this ordinarily glass half full gal.

Anyway. This is actually good discipline for me - the getting up and getting to things. Not schlobbing around the house in my jammies. Staggering to the coffeemaker before doing anything else. Sitting down and writing before doing the grup stuff of making the bed and so on. That's my normal routine. This morning it took me a second after the alarm shattered sleep to remember what I'm doing, then I did it. So I'm on track. Dressed with coffee and doing this before anything else. Then I'll go upstairs in a sec, make the bed, take care of Sam and do my other things preparatory to leaving the house at 0'dark thirty.

Once I get to work I have a pile of stuff on my desk that I'm weeding through and cleaning up. And that's always a pleasure for me. Pile stuff up, work it down to manageable, repeat.

Looking at what I have and what's remaining, I'm winning the battle. Another couple of days and the nightmare I dove into three weeks ago will be back under control. It will still take ongoing maintenance, but I expect I'll actually have time to spare for other things. Like what I was supposed to be working on before this landslide came along and I got started digging it out.

Of course, month-end is coming, too, and that will result in another huge deluge of stuff in this area. But that's okay. At least the backlog is cleared up.

And I've had it confirmed again. The biggest, most important method for solving stuff like this is communication. Second, and just as important, is doing what you say you'll do. Third is explaining why you did it.

That Golden Rule again, don't you know. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Pick up the phone and talk to them. Send them an explanatory e-mail. Such simple stuff. Sometimes I just have to shake my head because my predecessor who was also my antecedent, didn't seem to have that ability. That means the people with whom I'm dealing in his stead are a bit distrustful and more demanding than I remember them being when I dealt with them before.

I don't blame them. Not at all. Once bit, twice shy isn't one of those old sayings for no good reason. Fortunately, I am known to them because I worked with them for months before this all came about and fell apart. They know me and they know, or at least I think they know, that I'll do my best - and that's helped oil the waters and bought some time.

I do have several who are still screaming loudly - but they'll settle down, too, and we'll get this all smoothed out. Which is what I'm looking forward to doing today. Getting in, getting to work and making it all better.

You know? That sounds like so much fun I'm going to end this, finish up around here and hit the road.

I hope you have a lovely, pleasurable day full of stuff you enjoy doing.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories