Team Chat Week of 10/22/18!!!

Carol. your post made me smile! I'm so glad the weather is good and you're enjoying your kayaking! We are having typical fall rainy weather, so it's not so beautiful. At least it's not snow.

The horse I leased and loved for the last 11 years died suddenly on Friday. So, add that to the mix of personal stuff.........I'm very sad but honestly I've not had much time to ride, and I don't think I've even ridden for a year, so it's not that I miss riding. But I loved that horse and I'll miss her very much. For a horse, she was on the upper edge of middle aged, so you start to expect a decline, but this was a sudden aneurysm type of event, so there was no chance to say goodbye. I'm heartbroken.

But today, I have kids to take care of, groceries to buy, CPA and candle work to do, and lasagna to make for dinner!! Life gives us ups and downs. I think it's important to acknowledge the down so it doesn't fester, then push on with life because that's all we can really do!!

Jen, take care of yourself. The work is just work.........really, it's just work. Take care of you!!!

I'm off to the store! Maybe the teenagers will be awake by the time I get home. LOL

Yeah Jen, it never ceases to amaze me at how many businesses don't really understand management and haven't studied it. Many, many times a business is run by someone who had a good idea and was passionate about it...but that doesn't extend to running and managing a company. I think often management doesn't think about how they are affecting all of the employees. ...and forecasting for the busy season is NOT that hard...yet many companies fall down at this. Haha, speaking of which I am currently putting together a system at my company for forecasting what they need, when.

Heather - I'm sorry that you have strife in your personal life and I hope you guys can find a way forward. It can be difficult at times, that's for sure. Especially when you aren't making as much money as you were and add that into the mix. We have gone in and out of making money because of being with the kids and I know how hard it can be.

We are having a lovely long weekend here in Cambria! The weather has been gorgeous and kayaking was wonderful. We brought the double instead of the singles because I pulled something in my bad shoulder and I wasn't sure I could paddle. It turned out that I could, though later it hurt. We paddled across the bay and then hiked over sand dunes to the ocean and to search for sand dollars. I found a bunch of sand dollars (I'm going to make them into ornaments for my ocean themed Christmas tree!). I want to paint the edges and the outlines with a very faint gold.

Haha...speaking of Christmas, I've been working on advent calendars for my best friend and my daughter-in-law. I'm making ornaments for a small tree that is also jewelry. I got an extra tree because I may put one at work with new pieces of jewelry every day or so that they can choose from. I love Christmas!

Made it through the week... It's been rough at work, management didn't prepare well for the busy season and it's wearing on everyone, including me. None of my customers even know I'm expecting and will be going out on leave in late November. Just a mess... Of course not really my problem on some level.

Aaaand the sheer amount of how many people have been sick at work finally caught up with me and I have a head cold.

Had to vent a bit... But it's the weekend and I'm gonna stay home and take it easy for a couple days. Sort through shower gifts and hopefully order a crib!

I love the salad bar!! Nice benefit!

OK, so I'm happy to be back in Manhattan working. Except of course now there are pipe bombs being delivered to people very near where I work. So that's not awesome. I believe I'm OK because it seems to me the bombs are very specifically targeted at those who have spoken out against Trump, and I don't think the ASPCA has been involved at all with that, nor do I think there's a general threat against transit stations, etc. Sooooooo.........on with the work!

I'm glad it's nearing the end of the week. My stress level is through the roof with my personal stress so it's nice that the work is moving along well and I'm starting to be able to be a useful part of management here. I'm settling into the new role and I sure hope I can make it permanent sooner rather than later. I'm trying to interview for other jobs so I can either use an offer as leverage to get them to make me perm, or take another job. Either way, I can't keep going on as a temp at this rate of pay. Something has to change soon.

On an up note, we have a nice lunch planned today for the finance department, so that should be fun.

Guess I need to get going on the work!! Have a great day everyone!

I was thinking about how we used to take the short term exchange kids during the summer. They had a six week program with Spaniards and we typically took two because it was more fun for such a short time.

I'm not walking at lunch today, I'm trying to get a report done before a meeting (sigh). The nice thing is having a free salad bar to go get lunch, even if I'm eating it at my desk. It works well for meeting with partners too, you say, hey want to talk it over while having a salad? Then you have a captured audience!

Great walk at lunch today! Colder than yesterday, but a short brisk walk is definitely what the doctor ordered at lunch time!!

Stress or not, I'd be happy with the 10 lbs - woo hoo!

Picking the right show is definitely a smart art! Figuring out renaissance faires were the best for my style made the difference of feeling like I wasted a day and making some money!

I love having foreign exchange students, it makes me miss having them. I'm not sure we'll do it again since we moved north. The kids love going down to Hollywood and walking down the star walk and also up to the sign. We usually find fun bands to go listen to. Then we usually go to San Francisco too because it's such a beautiful city. The Italian students traditionally stop in New York for a few days before coming to California so they're pretty spoiled!

It looks like it's going to be gorgeous weather here and I'm excited to take Friday and Monday off to go kayaking! We're going to go down to Cambria on the ocean and stay at one of our favorite places, Cambria Pines Lodge. This will mark the 40th year that we've gone there together!

I want to go down to Morro Bay and kayak out there too. So many beautiful places to kayak!

What are your plans for the week?

Good Morning!! I'm back in the office and doing fine! It was a late morning for me because I had to get the kids in to school. We picked up a second exchange student on Saturday because his match wasn't very good. I think I probably mentioned that last week. So far, so good.....

We had a very nice time in the city on Saturday. I brought Sydney, Lisa (the exchange student), Sydney's best friend Charlotte, and Sydney's boyfriend Michael into the city for a little touristy stuff. It's not really my scene, but we saw Times Square, ate lunch at a ridiculous tourist restaurant, bought souvenirs and shopped at Herald Square. I mean, it couldn't have been more cliche if we tried......but the kids had fun. And I always enjoy the city!!

This week is jam packed with kid stuff and work stuff.

Hubby didn't do as well at the show last weekend as we would have liked. Thank goodness a couple came in and bought three lamps! Because without them, it would have been a real bust. It just wasn't the right venue for us. We have to get better at picking shows! Hubby tries, but I think I have a much better sense of what will work. I trust him too much to pick shows, and some that he picks are just not right for us.

On the weight and health front, all is good. I'm slowly losing some weight because I'm finally paying attention to what I eat. And I may not have time to work out at home, but I'm walking a lot including going out at lunch, so that's good!! I've taken off about 10 pounds in the last month. Some of that is probably stress........but a lot of it is simply eating less. Woo hoo!!

I hope you all had a nice weekend and you enjoy this week!!!

Have a FUN and ACTIVE day!!!