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All Plates Spinning

23 Sunday Oct 2011

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Wow.

OK, I’m tired.  I can’t decide if this is a good tired or not, so I’m going with good…for now.

I got a lot of seeds planted over the past year and half. Seeds like job connections.  Doing the pro bono work with my friend/colleague when I was unemployed.  Representing Silpada.  And it’s funny how sometimes the seeds sprout up all at the same time!

I had one of those weeks where I barely had time to sneeze, starting with Tuesday.  Oh yes, glorious hockey.  Hockey is that regular rhythm that is such a delicious part of my lifestyle…a wacky outlet that continually surprises people when I tell them I play (yes, year ’round, co-ed).  Normally we have games on Sunday nights, but this week we played on Tuesday night…a 9:30pm faceoff at a rink about a half hour drive from my house.  We had a tough 4-1 loss, but on the other hand it was probably a good ‘keep the ego in check’ kind of game, because our previous two games were blowout wins.

Getting home at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night, knowing morning is just around the corner, is surreal.  It’s hard to wind down and immediately get to sleep, so the next day I am usually on adrenaline and crash early the next night.

Wednesday?  After work I met with a former co-worker for a quick drink.  He used to be my Director way back in the early 2000s, and we have kept in touch over the years as our career paths moved onward.  Most recently he and I worked together on that pro bono project with another mutual colleague.

…that project which is pro bono no more!  Later that night I got home, got a 2nd (3rd?) wind and fired up the home laptop.  Did I mention that the company did finally land some actual business with an actual client?  And that while the gig was in progress the founder of this company (my friend/colleague who was actually doing the work himself because it wasn’t enough to justify hiring someone) meanwhile also landed some full-time work of his own with a different company and moved to Baltimore?  And asked me to help finish up the project?  Yes, ’tis true.  Whew, did those last few sentences make sense?  It’s all a big whoosh, just like it’s been in my head trying to process it all.  I’m flattered he asked me to take over the work to be done, and also am learning how much my brain needs to stretch to keep the mental “work” energy fresh and vibrant for an extra 10 hours or so a month.  I got home Wednesday night after that drink with M, called A (who is on east coast time so it’s super late for him), fired up the laptop here and worked for an hour on another version of a project schedule.  Ah, the classic time and resource constraints.  We now have a recommended schedule and a shortened, condensed version of the schedule, which we may have to resort to if our client’s budget runs out end of calendar year.  And we need a decision quick because time is ticking.  Nope, the calendar is not our friend.

As I was working over the phone with A updating the spreadsheet, I was mentally multi-tasking, thinking ahead to the next morning – Thursday.  We had a training session onsite with that client, and earlier this month I was a little worried on if I’d be able to take a half day off from my “real” full-time job to go to the client site.  Thursdays are typically super busy.  But the universe smiled, and it was easy to get my time off approved.  Even better, the FTEs at my full-time job had an offsite event all day, so I didn’t feel too guilty about being away either.  None of the pro bono work I’m doing is in direct competition with my full-time job, but still it feels a little funny doing this side work…not in a bad way at all though.

The training Thursday morning was in downtown Seattle.  Le Sigh, how suburban I have become.  I was laughing to myself remembering how long it’s been since I’ve worked downtown. 17 years.  How I miss it…I lived and worked in Seattle for years after finishing college and just took the bus everywhere – it was fabulous.  And I never lived in the suburbs while working in the city – the only time I ever did any regular commuting from the suburbs into Seattle was – gulp – in 1988 when I was taking some classes at the U of W for some extra college credit while home for the summer between my junior and senior year.

So that night I was wondering just how bad the traffic would be for the morning commute.  And I had to get up about an hour and a half earlier than I usually do.  It was almost dreamlike, busting out of my routine, heading over that bridge into Seattle.  The bridge where they’re still struggling to get the toll functionality to work properly – looks like they’ve pushed out to start in December now.  I actually made great time and got to the building about a half hour early.  Ahhh, perfect.  Enough time to join the super long line at Starbucks.  I needed a double tall nonfat latte something fierce!  I reminisced, remembering how I worked in a building just across the street from where I was, high up enough to where we could look DOWN upon this building as it was under construction.  Back in those days when I dressed up for work in skirts, pantyhose and pumps, and the only computer in our office was a huge 386 desktop for all 6 of us to share.  We did most of our daily grind on state of the art (back then) typewriters and our essential fax machine. Ahhh, that morning it felt strange to be going to work without my laptop briefcase.  Just my purse and a notebook tucked inside.  How much things have changed in 20+ years!

After the client meetings that morning, I headed back to the ‘burbs and my full-time job.  And made the drastic mental shift from consulting to…printing.  What’s going on here?  Well, at my full-time job some of the team are conducting a long series of workshops where they use large wall posters as visual aids to do some grounding on why the heck we’re doing the work we’re doing.  We’re a little tight on our supply budget, so I was asked to help out by doing some of the large poster printouts myself, using one of the huge plotter-style printers that are in various locations around our campus.  Sounds easy enough, but it sure wasn’t.  Finding where they are, finding out if they’re open for other groups to use (meaning, not private), finding out if they are actually working or not, getting the right printer drivers installed…  UGH UGH UGH.  Now I’m not one to bitch about work, but come on now.  How much money are we really saving having me, a well-paid (and, ahem, well-billed) consultant doing all this legwork that we could just hand off to a professional printer and be done with it?  Hmmm.

A 10 minute drive across campus and 3 hours later, I completed the printouts.  Getting them rolled up and clipped and into my car – in the rain – was interesting to say the least.  Paper is goddamn heavy!  No joke!  I’d hoped to get some other work done while these huge posters were printing but nope, no dice.  I found out just how high maintenance these print jobs are.  The paper does not capture well after it prints, so I had to hold it just so, so it wouldn’t fold up or bend.

And at about 4:30pm, I mentally shut down.  I’d gotten up early, got out of my routine going downtown for half a day, then spent the other half of the day back at work cranking out posters on a huge printer.  Guess that hit my saturation point.  I went home, exhausted.

Friday was a good day to catch up on work missed Thursday, and I topped it off meeting up with D for a drink at Brix, a wonderful wine bar not far from my house.  D’s the one I ran into at the Michael Kors store a few weeks ago (see my Two Surprising Ds post for that funny story!).  I’m really enjoying getting to know her!

And Saturday?  Keeping up with me here?  I did a Silpada party for my good friend S, who was my neighbor here in the townhouse complex for many years.  She and her boyfriend recently bought an absolutely beautiful home in Lake Tapps and it was time for housewarming and playing with jewelry!  We had a blast.  It’s an hour drive each way to their house, but so incredibly worth it.  I earned $300 commission from the party sales – not too shabby for just a few hours of “work” eh?

So it’s not surprising that I slept in till nearly 11am today.  Yikes, that even is late for me and borders on feeling wasteful of the day.  But that was how tired I was!

No rest tonight either save for a short nap maybe later. Yep, Sunday night means hockey.  And tonight’s faceoff?

10:45pm.  Awww yeahhhh.       

Cotton Ball 5K

28 Sunday Aug 2011

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Whew!  The 3rd time IS a charm.  After being too tired or too rained out for two other 5Ks this spring/summer, I finally got one under my belt this year!

OK, yeah…I didn’t RUN it, but it still counts right?

This was my second time volunteering in the annual Alki Beach 5K Walk & Run, which benefits Northwest Hope and Healing.  Northwest Hope and Healing is a non-profit organization which provides emergency financial assistance for women who are undergoing breast cancer treatment at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.  Assistance with basic living expenses like rent, childcare and groceries.

And wow that was a lot of hyperlinking in that last paragraph.  But really good stuff – please check it out.

So, how do you volunteer at a 5K?  Well, the way I did today was one of the easiest jobs ever – walk the course at the very end, to help let the police and others know that they could start re-opening the roads again.  That’s it! 

There are a ton of both new and old memories woven into this event…starting with the neighborhood.  Alki Beach is in West Seattle, and there’s a ton of family history here on my Dad’s side of the family.  My grandfather grew up in West Seattle in the 1920s.  He and my grandmother later raised my Dad and Uncle in this same neighborhood.  I have enormously fond memories as a kid of the long drive from my house growing up in the suburbs over to West Seattle for Sunday dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Countless, joyful times. 

And the newer memories are from my dear friend P, who inspired me to start training to run 5Ks a couple of years ago.  She and I used to work together and I’m so glad we still keep in touch despite super busy schedules.  P’s both run and volunteered in this 5K before, and I was so happy she asked me to join her again this year.

What can I say…this just FEELS good all around.  And it’s a nice change of pace getting out of the suburbs and into a wonderful, older neighborhood in the city, right on the salt water of Puget Sound.

OK, getting up super early on a Sunday morning is not my favorite thing to do, but once I got up, got dressed and on my way to meet P for our carpool, I was smiling.  P showed up with S, an exchange student from Japan who is staying with a friend of P’s while attending college here.  S was a good sport – I wasn’t sure if she knew entirely what this event was going to be all about but I admired her spunk and enthusiasm.  And her English was pretty good too!  Far better than my Japanese for sure, ha.

We arrived at Alki Beach around 8am.  Damn, that fog was thick but thankfully it was not as chilly as it was last year.  I remember borrowing knit running gloves from P at the last minute!  And also having to put our t-shirts on over our jackets! This year it was not cold, but that fog didn’t burn of AT ALL.

Yep, that’s Yours Truly in this week’s picture – that’s a fivenineteen first, everyone.  Had it not been so foggy there would have been a spectacular view of the Seattle skyline behind me.  Believe me.  P and I were so bummed because we really wanted S (the exchange student) to experience the view.  But the darn fog never burned off.

The one challenging thing about walking at the tail end of a 5K is, well, keeping your pace just right.  You don’t want to ‘hover’ too close behind the last group of walkers.  And, you want to make sure you start walking truly after everyone else has started.  With about 1200 people participating we had to wait several minutes before we could take to the street and start.

This race goes up and down Alki Avenue – a very flat, fast course.  At the halfway point the course does a 180 turn and heads back down the street, finishing at the same place we started.  Even though I was walking at a very slow pace with P and S, I was looking forward to a quick gulp of water at the water stop.  NOPE.  No water stop at the turn around point this year!  If I had been running this race I would have been extremely pissed.  Yikes.

Other than a few late stragglers we had to corral (how in the hell do you show up over one hour late for a 5K? Baffling.) the three of us had a very nice, relaxing stroll.  And we even finished in around 1 hour 15 minutes.  MUCH faster than last year.  Feels kinda cool walking over the finishing line and hearing the emcee announce, “…and our last walkers have just crossed the finish line…”.  Meanwhile we didn’t even break a sweat.

So although the fog kept its iron-clad grip on the neighborhood (hence my ‘cotton ball’ post title today), we had a wonderful morning volunteering.

And on the drive back to the suburbs?  Glorious sunshine.  Even Mount Baker was out.  Too funny how socked in Alki was.

Now it’s time for a nap.  Until next week, everyone! 

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Transition Preparations

12 Sunday Jun 2011

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Last week I wrote about the wave that washed over me, forcing me to sit in my chair here and finish updating my resume.  I’ve learned to not question these super duper strong instincts when they hit – they mean it, dammit!  It meant canceling on my hockey game rather last minute, and I don’t like doing that at ALL, but the wave won out.

Good thing too:  the resume got updated that night.  And distributed.

And just a day or two later, guess what happened? Not one but THREE great job leads appeared from the consulting firm who found my current job.  What a difference a year and a half makes!  The job market is improving, and my phone and email are rumbling even harder back to life.  I’m realizing how much more mentally prepared I will be going into my next job assignment, as it shouldn’t be nearly as long between gigs as last time around…I hope.  Last year I went from mental 0 to 100 literally overnight – an abrupt shock back after feeling like my brain was turning to mush with nothing going on for months and months.  Now, while I feel a bit weary and ready for this current engagement to finish up, I feel more ‘on’.  That’s hard to put into words, but it’s how it came out.

My friend D’s husband also forwarded my resume to a few of his connections, and I’ll be meeting up with a Director at a consulting firm later this week for lunch.  We had a great chat late on Friday afternoon!  I’d prefer to have the firm who I’m currently affiliated with get me reassigned, but I’ve gotta look out for Numero Uno here.  And who knows – new connections made now could sprout even further down the road for me or for another colleague.

In the meantime, I’ve got a job to do through the end of the month, and, well, I’m only human and it would be incredibly easy to flip the mental switch and stop caring.  Sure I take pride in my work and will do whatever it takes for a strong finish.  But for some stuff, frankly, I’ll need to fake it.  Before I knew I would be wrapping up this month, I got assigned some brand new stuff to do – and the milestones were plotted all the way into January.  Why would I get assigned something new if I was going to be cut loose just a few weeks later?  Anyway, the reasons don’t matter, and I’m just chalking it up to even more opportunity to gain more experience in a very short timeframe.  Plus, it’s a small world out there and I might end up back with this team or something similar down the road.  

How you finish is just as important as how you start.  Don’t burn bridges.  Go for the Graceful Exit.

I had lunch with S, a friend I’ve known for years who I met through hockey. She and I really bonded a couple of years ago when I was first getting used to being unemployed.  She has her own business as an aside from her full-time work, and I came with her to several events as a guest to learn more about it.  It was great to get out of the house, meet new people and clean up/dress up on those days I had no interviews when the temptation was to just be a slob and mope.  And I am dumbfounded that all started two years ago.

It was wonderful to reconnect over lunch again – how had it been a year or so since we last met up?

So, I’m just keeping busy and connected while preparing for whatever the next plunge might be.  I’m excited, relieved, nervous, curious…the list goes on.  Notice that ‘angry’ is not in that list of feelings.  ‘Cause I’m not in the slightest.  This gig was designed to be purely consultative, not permanent.  And while I don’t like to call out specific details in here when it comes to jobs and companies, let me just say I’m perfectly happy with that arrangement.  Great experience, but not anywhere to hang my hat right now.

T and I met up for dinner at Palomino last night…she is such an amazing friend.  We’ve each gone through some bumps this year – my very brief relationship, and she and her boyfriend split up a couple of months ago…he had been living with her and so it was a rough ride with all of that and him moving out.  We’re both happy and strong women and always land on our feet, but we also appreciate the friendships and support out there too.  So much to be grateful for.

We split a wonderful bottle of wine (the name escapes me now but trust me, a mighty fine white something), while T chose the Seafood Louie – a beautiful salad – and I the fusilli picatta, a delicious combo of marinated chicken, shallots, capers and a few chili flakes for kick in a white wine sauce.

And when you’re steps away from fabulous shopping at Bellevue Square, of COURSE you gotta hop over there too.  T picked out a gorgeous pair of black Tod’s loafers, and I, knowing I am soon to be on a budget again, merely drooled over shoes.

T and I are brainstorming ideas for a meetup group we’re planning to launch later this summer.  We’re super excited! 

And I think “excited” is the right way to describe things for me right now.  One door is slowly closing, and something new, unknown, magical is going to pop and set me on an entirely new journey this summer and beyond.

Let’s just hope it’s sooner than later!
    

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Changes Dunked in Silver

01 Sunday May 2011

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May already??  Wow. 

Well, it was quite a week.  And how could we not recap a week without a big nod to the Royal Wedding – ?  C’mon, even the most anti out there saw a few clips of it or at least the pictures?  And maybe even cracked a smile?  It was breathtaking.  Not so breathtaking for me to feel like getting up at 3am to watch it live, but I do know of a few ladies who did get up early and have a pajama party – with their best HATS on.  Love it!  And pass the tea and scones, please, darling.

So, changes.  Changes are good – good to refresh, re-analyze and re-group.  My work assignment is getting a brief extension at least into the summer – possibly into the fall – but that still has not hashed out.  Good Lord have I been back at work nearly a year?  Yes indeed.  All of that stress and anguish I went through prior to landing this gig won’t soon be forgotten.  So nice to have it far in the rear view mirror.  But with a few scars…and that’s OK.

Two of my closest co-workers wrapped up their assignments this week and are moving on.  One won’t be going too far it turns out, as she’ll be joining kind of a ‘cousin’ team of ours, but I’ll miss her ‘partner in crime’ that she’s been this past year.  Another is required to take about 3 months off – that’s the rules with some kinds of contingent workers – and she is hoping to return and pick up where she left off.

I’m happy for them both but admittedly a little sad.  But moreso I have a shitload of hilarious memories.  Things that may have sucked before but are now funny. 

I capped off the workweek with a wonderful dinner with my dear friend L at Brix, a wine bar a short drive from my house.  She’s a part of that circle of friends I get together with a few times a year – we’re all about the same age and went to elementary school together.  Unwinding over a nice pinot gris and to die for risotto was heavenly.  L and I can just smile at eachother and ‘know’ what we’re each thinking.  Oodles of memories over some 35 years.  

And the silver, silver, silver flows and flows.  I’m taking a few extra steps in my Silpada business by doing a sort of correspondence course with a coach at the corporate offices.  She sends me ‘homework’ each week for 4 weeks and I send it back at the end of the week.  She sends me feedback, the next week’s ‘homework,’ and we also chat on the phone during the week too.

Ugh.  I know myself pretty well and am realizing where I’m doing well in promoting my business and where I suck monkey butt.  I have a party next weekend that I’m SUPER excited about.  And one night I met up with a good friend I hadn’t seen in quite awhile for dinner and half priced bottles of wine.  She asked about the jewelry I was wearing, I let her road test a few pieces during dinner, and voila – that evening I had a very nice order from her!  So I feel comfortable when people approach me with questions or compliments.  I’ve been complimented on my jewelry from random strangers in the grocery store to the cashier in one of our work cafeterias.  You can bet I never go anywhere without my jewelry on and a handful of business cards.  Yes, I’m learning the nuts and bolts of direct selling.  It’s all about connections, people!  The woman who is hosting my party next week noticed my jewelry at work and it just flowed from there.  You never know!

But I hate picking up the damn phone.  It’s no problem for me when I’m doing follow up calls to make sure people are happy with their jewelry and to answer any other questions, but just making outbound calls to people I know to talk about what I’m doing and to ask if they’d like to host parties.  Well, ew.  I am so not a sales person, and frankly, when I get home from work I am tired and the last thing I feel like doing is picking up the phone.  I feel like I’m intruding on people’s dinner time or other quality time with family.  And you know I don’t mean to be whiney in here because I DO love what I’m doing as a side business, but that’s the area I need to really work on.

And it suddenly dawned on me why.

Email!  Texting!  Facebook!  So much of my immediate circle communication is through non-phone, social media methods!  Aha!  Is that something unique to me?  Or to this part of the country?  I have beautiful snail mail postcards in my supplies which are used to send out reminders about parties.  I don’t know about any of you, but around here we stick with Evite.  Is it because it’s ‘green’?  Or technological?  It’s SO much easier to set up parties and have reminders sent automatically via email.  

So these are some fun self-discovery things…part of the reason I chose to start this business was to get out of my comfort zone and do something I’d never done before.  Same as my plunge into hockey back in 2003.

I’ll be speaking during part of our monthly team meeting this week and I’m really honored to be asked. It’s very informal – just sharing the tips I’ve learned from this 4-week course I’m doing on my own – but I really appreciate the chance to participate more in our meetings.  ‘Cause they’re super fun!!

And now it’s time to head to the bank and run other fun errands.  Got a shiny new Silpada license plate frame on my car – let’s see what happens!