Lately...

This Thanksgiving was the best ever, but I'm not going to write about it here since the vast majority of people who actually read my blog were there and don't need the recap.

I've started decorating the house for Christmas and, honestly, it has been so much fun that I can't figure out why I don't do it every year. Yesterday I got out the big rubbermaid container with all of the decorations that survived the move to Portland. We'll see how many of them survive this Christmas season. The cats at my house tend to have a singular focus when it comes to a Christmas tree: destroy at all costs. I'm already thinking about anchoring the top of the tree with fishing line tied to my curtain rod. Trust me, if I didn't, the first thing they would do is climb to the top and push off of the wall to knock the whole thing over. F-ing cats.

I know I recently mentioned the potluck fever at work, but it is seriously getting ridiculous. We are having not one but TWO potlucks for the Christmas season: one is just a standard potluck but the other is a dessert potluck (only one week later!). Another thing I have only recently discovered about my new job is the Christmas decorating craziness happening here. And they will kick your ass about it too. I forgot to bring in Christmas decorations yesterday and actually got the shakedown from the office godfather for falling down on the job. So yesterday I went rummaging through my big box of decorations and found a few things that I brought in today. My favorite is the tree made out of bright pink feathers. It makes quite a statement, don't you think?

I appreciate it because it straddles the fine line of going along without actually submitting to the craziness.

Plans change

Well, crap. My jewelry class was postponed until the beginning of the year since all the prospective students were busy for the holidays. I suppose it's good, actually. I have plenty going on right now and I certainly don't mind having one less thing to take care of. Plus, the holidays are coming up for me too, so there will be more things to keep me busy. Actually, tonight I will be busy figuring out what I'm going to bring to tomorrow's Thanksgiving potluck (they are potluck crazy around here...but I kind of love that :). Maybe I'll bake some more cupcakes or something.
The Portland Gem Faire (the E makes it fancy) is happening this weekend, just down the street from where I work. Last time I went with William but he is in Mexico on vacation this week, so it looks like I'll be flying solo. Hopefully I can manage to not spend my entire paycheck on gemstone beads and silver findings. I do plan to geek out about all the pretty beads though, so it's probably good that nobody I know will be there ;)
Running my own house has been pretty awesome so far. I have cleaned 5 rooms and there is just one more left, but the 6th is the room where I've piled everything else so it will probably take a while. It's been fairly easy to keep the house clean, though I do find that I have to vacuum the carpet almost every day because it's the rainy season here in Portland and the dogs' paws are always dirty. Ah, the joys of pet ownership! Speaking of pets, the new litterbox is still working like a champ, though the little litter granules get scattered EVERYWHERE because they are plastic and therefore lighter and tend to static cling to the cats when they jump out of the box. I've ordered a dome for the box that should help alleviate some of this issue. Other than that, it's working out great. The cats are all using it and seem to be pretty damn happy about it. Works for me!
Next week is Thanksgiving...WTF?? I can't believe it's here already. I haven't even given a thought to what I need to get for the turkey. Oh, I found out the other day that my company is definitely going to hire me permanently starting in early December. Unfortunately, this comes too late for me to get paid for the Thanksgiving holidays, but I did manage to negotiate a dollar more an hour, so at least that's something. It will be good to have a permanent job again. There's this weird 'otherness' I feel when I'm a contractor on a team of permanent employees. Like I don't quite belong. I'm looking forward to being one of the gang again. That's all the news. I'll write more when there's more to say.

Etsy update

More new Etsy stuff! Check it out on the right. :)

This weekend...in pictures

This entry is mostly for my mom. She came over on Sunday to drop off a wee li'l frozen turkey (we have a lot of vegetarians in the family) and saw the house at a pretty dicey stage. We're talking piles of laundry, furballs everywhere, cat litter all over the floor, boxes, bags, clutter on every surface. Not a pretty sight. So to ease her mind that I've not descended forever into a pit of unkempt frat-boy messitude, here are a few pictures of the newly clean kitchen, plus some pics of the pets, around which you can see the lovely mess as it was before the cleaning began.

Here's Tater asleep on the sofa. Note the piles of things on the kitchen counter. If you could see further to the left, you would see piles of paper bags, boxes and cat litter. Yum!









And here's Rosie, also asleep on the sofa. Note the piles of mess behind her and the giant laundry basket on the left.










Here's Chutney's smiling face...at this point you can see I have made some progress with the piles of things on the bookshelves, but the laundry is still holding its ground. You'll have to take my word for it that the living room looks great now because I don't have any after pictures of this room. Maybe I'll take some tonight.








Here's Pumpkin on the bed. I didn't actually do any cleaning in the bedroom this weekend but I figured someone should represent for the cats among all of these dog pictures. Also please note Tater's giant paws in the lower left corner.









This is the first of our glorious after shots...the dining room. The contraption on the right is the new cat litter box that hooks up to the plumbing and washes and dries the litter and then flushes the cat poop out of the house. So far, it is the best thing I have ever spent money on.








Here is the corner where the old litterbox was. Sure, it's still a little cluttered, but it's at least an organized clutter. Also no litter on the floor. That's a big change.










Another view of the kitchen. Aaaahhhh...no piles of things on the counters. I may even feel inspired to cook once in a while!










Last but not least, here's Tater after I steam cleaned the carpet. I think she misses the dirt.


So there you go. See Mom? The situation isn't nearly as dire as you must have been thinking. Maybe you should come over next weekend and you can see for yourself! :)

xo,
C

Not too bad, actually

I was just rejected for the help desk manager job and I actually feel pretty good about it. I am proud as hell that I was brave enough to submit myself for consideration and the interview gave me a chance to talk about my strengths and my management style and it gave my boss a chance to talk about how great he thinks I am, which is always nice to hear. On top of that, lately I have been thinking maybe I didn't really want the job, especially with the whole on call thing.
My boss said he could definitely see me heading up projects or smaller groups within the team, but that he didn't feel like I was ready to take on the role of help desk manager. I have to say that he's right, actually. I am totally not ready to be in charge of over 15 techs. I am absolutely ready to be a project manager again, though. I need more from my job than just answering calls and putting tickets in. So hopefully if a project comes up that needs a manager, he will consider me for that. I'm pretty sure I made it clear that I'm interested.

Tonight begins the second stage of the separation challenge. I plan to mark the occasion by cleaning some more. Fun stuff!

Random

Have I mentioned how much I love my camera phone? Here's a picture of the studio where I'm going to take my jewelry class. The part you're seeing is the coffee shop attached to the studio where they have display space for their artists to sell their work. Very, very cool. I go back on Monday and hopefully this time they will have some more students to take the class.

I realized this morning when I got to work that my office is full of fat ladies. They're all different sizes, but none of them are really skinny. I think it is really good for me to be surrounded by so many strong, capable fat women every day. It helps to remind me that I'm not defined by my size and that I have a lot more to offer than I sometimes give myself credit for.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea that I don't have control over the outcomes of situations. The help desk manager thing was a big step...an epiphany, really. Now I find that when I'm stressed out about something I actually have 'letting it go' as an option of how to deal with it. Not that I'm super-good at it yet, but even being able to consider the idea makes a huge difference.

The other day I came across the email address of a guy who used to tease me mercilessly in the sixth grade. He had moved to Seattle and is now working in IT so I figured, what the hey, I should email him and say hi. There were a few moments after emailing him where I thought about how crappy I would feel if he didn't email back, but then that whole 'no control over outcomes' thing kicked in and I realized all I could do was send him my message and see what happened. As it turns out, I got a really nice response from him, complete with an apology for being such an ass in sixth grade! It was a cool moment.