The snowblowers are going outside, cleaning up what yesterday's storm deposited. As I'd predicted, it kept me home and out of the gym, the same storm that beat down Dagmar while she was out walking the dogs. There's another storm in the forecast for late tonight and into tomorrow. Bill, are you also expecting a storm again tomorrow? We are, and I feel fortunate we've got a 24-hour break, just for today's daylight hours, because I've got back-to-back appointments with the orthopedic surgeon and a physical therapy session.
Jessica, congratulations on your promotion! And doesn't that feel good, particularly when you're also been balancing childcare with your career? I'm so focused on getting better physically that I haven't felt very ambitious, but I may end up getting pushed into some decision-making due to outside circumstances. My manager confided that she's tired of trying and failing to please management above her, and is looking outside the company for her next job, and interviewed downtown yesterday. Since I got back, I could tell her heart wasn't in her job at all, that she felt aggrieved.
Alice, I laughed aloud, politically incorrectly, at the name of the Bataan Death March. But I have to say, your feats of physical endurance post-injury-recovery are heartening to me. Nope, I don't like crafts. At all. But I am starting watching the third and final season of "Deadwood," which I am loving.
Sharon, I have a vision of myself walking like a normal person and without discomfort through a street in the West Village lined with flowering Callery pears, on my way to see some small documentary film and to buy a bath bomb from Lush. So yeah, I am dreaming of Manhattan after its emergence from the new Ice Age we're under. I wish I'd been a student in the city. It's good for students and the really, really rich, not much in between.
Like Dagmar, I feel like I am running on empty, as these consecutive storms keep rolling through. Probably I won't make it to the gym again on Thursday. How can I get back to where I was when I keep having to pace (crookedly, with a cane) the floors of my apartment, watching more & more snow fall, because I'm too fragile to go outside and risk falling?
I think back to when I lived in SLC, having to get up and out to the car in the dark, snowy weather to get to my university. I'd try to warm up my car in the driveway before heading out and I'd have a huge glass of coffee with me that would invariably get too cold to drink in it's entirety. I think of these things when I hear all of you struggling with the snow and cold. I remember how much I disliked the dark, dreary days of winter and know that I do not want to live in that place again. But then I also remember the extreme heat we have in the summer and must remember that this is my choice and I shouldn't complain about that.
We've had a couple days of cooler (more normal) weather with a rainstorm that lasted from dawn til dark on Sunday. It was so nice! I never left the house. We had the fireplace going all day. Just a day to relax and unwind. It makes the rest of the week feel better. The weather is already warming up and we'll get to golf again this weekend.
I had a very nice birthday and day off yesterday, despite the fact I seem to have caught a cold. Spent a wonderful day with dh-- yoga in the morning, brunch, errands, foot massages, sushi for dinner.
He left this morning and I intend to get serious about getting my weight back down. My pants are TIGHT today. Unfortunately, my friend sent a dozen chocolate covered strawberries and 3 chocolate cake pops. I shared some with dh and brought 2 to my birthday twin at work, but I still have quite a bit left.
Thanks for the comments, folks. Saef, yes, it does feel good to get a promotion this soon after having been set back by maternity leave. On the other hand, if I hadn't been out on maternity leave then, I might have gotten promoted earlier since I had to miss out on a career opportunity because of it. That said, promotions haven't been announced publicly but I am hoping the guy who got the career opportunity I missed due to my maternity leave also got promoted, he definitely deserves it.
Daylight savings change is this weekend! Already! We're trying to gradually work the kids' bedtime earlier to account for it. It occurs to me that my kids are going to be two years old at the end of next month. Hard to believe. I'm trying to decide whether to do a birthday party for them or just have family over for dinner on their actual birthday (it's a Wednesday this year). If we do something on a weekend we might be able to get my BIL and SIL to come into town for it, which would be nice. I doubt my sister would be able to come out from CA but BIL and SIL each live about a 2 hour drive from here so it's much more reasonable.
This morning, yesterday's thaw is just a memory. Now it's snowing hard and steadily, as if it were the beginning of winter, not its final stretch -- and again, all of the schools are closed.
That probably means another day when I'm confined indoors all day, won't risk making it it to the gym and will have to pace through the basement with my cane and do step-ups on the iron basement staircase.
Yesterday, a helpful and imaginative neighbor brought me a contraption to attach to bottom of my cane. It's a pull-down spiky-tooth metal piece -- looks like a miniature bear trap! -- which turns the cane's bottom into a kind of crampon to give the cane better traction on ice.
Yesterday, the orthopedic surgeon authorized my unofficially adopted cane with an official prescription, but said he doesn't want me on an elliptical, or even walking on a treadmill. So for the next four weeks, till he takes another set of x-rays, it's the bike for me, and step ups, and above all, practicing walking.
He said I could drive again, but he cautioned me against attempting it during questionable weather, or going to anyplace with insecure footing. Basically, he's asking me to wait till winter ends (whenever in God's name that will be) before resuming my accustomed daily routine, though with the assistance of a cane.
And Jessica, I know what you mean about foregone opportunities. My manager is so very discontented, I'm certain she'll depart from our company within the next six months. The question is, will I be physically recovered by then, and up to speed on those constant subtle political shifts in the office, and in a strong enough position to be a competitive candidate for her job? Or did this accident and my being out of commission put me way behind, and out of sight & out of mind?
All those Op-eds and "Lean In" circles are right. If you REALLY want to get ahead in tech, you can't be unwell and you can't have babies, and if you are so unfortunate as to do either, unwillingly or willingly, you will pay financially.
Your helpful neighbor's contraction sounds like a godsend, Saef. I bet you will be ready for your manager's job if/when she leaves. Hopefully she'll leave closer to the six months from now, rather than sooner, when you're more ready.
I hope the weather improves so you can DRIVE! That will be momentous!
Speaking of bad weather and the East Coast, do you know if Rhode Island is experiencing the same bad weather? My only living relative, my uncle, is elderly and in Rhode Island. I've tried calling a couple of times and the phone just rings, without going to answering machine. He doesn't use email. I figure the phones are out or maybe his answering machine is. I'm trying not to worry but I know the winters are bad for him. I'm going to try him this weekend and keep trying till he answers (or his wife does-- she still works part-time).
My weight cooperated this morning by moving downwards. I hope it continues in that direction. I'm under my redline-- but just barely...
Michele, looks like there is three to five inches forecast for Providence, RI over the course of the day, at least according to the National Weather Service website.
For us, that wouldn't take down the phone lines or the Internet, but it would lead to prolonged sequestration till it stops and the plows come out.
I'm thinking maybe we'll get the upper end of the projected snow totals, which was six inches.
I'm just working from home, catching up on paper, while my mother does the laundry.
Again, no gym. That's Tuesday and Thursday that I'll have missed this week, just when I'd gotten in a good groove of working my upper body and pedaling to build up my leg. I know I can't recover well if I do nothing outside of physical therapy sessions. That's why I feel so gloomy.
I harvested seven tomatoes from my garden yesterday. I noticed that my pepper plants have new growth and buds beginning. I planted four zucchini seeds and two of them have germinated. DH thinks we'll have too many zucchini but I disagree. There are so many dishes I make that have zucchini in them that we'll be just fine. Besides, I'm not the type to let the vegetable grow and grow to monstrous proportions--I'll pick them when they're a nice 4 or 5 inches long. I need to find a couple other plants to put in my garden and hope they produce before the heat of the summer kills them off.
What I want for everyone is that we be free of perfectionism, that soul-killer.
I hope that we learn not to listen to the mean voice within that says, "Not good enough. Not good enough." May we all appreciate ourselves, even if we don't like the numbers we see that supposedly measure our "worth." These numbers are irrelevant, and the idea that we need to measure up is a lie. It's a lie that we believe, and we can give up our belief.
May we be free of joyless striving. May we learn to see each day's activities as a gift that we can appreciate, rather than as a burden we can never lay down.
Thank you for that JayEll. Your words about joyless striving really hit home with me - they remind me that I can and should bring the happiness I feel at other times into my workplace. It is not the purpose of my workplace to bring me joy, I need to bring my own.
I'm trying, Jay, but I have to tell you, what looks like me wanting to be "better than" doesn't look like that from here.
I've explained the weird mental calculus going on here before.
It's from me feeling so much less than -- fatter, slower, stupider, inelegant, even unfeminine -- and since I'm starting from a place so far below parity, I have to make a superhuman effort of greater than to even reach the baseline of normality.
Or at least, what I perceive as normality of those I'm living among. In NY, everyone may not be normal ;-)
Terrible mobile phone version of 3FC has appeared. You may not see me as much as it's so fussy to get where I want to get. With a busy life I don't have the patience to click through different screens. It was absolutely fine how it was, guys.
Saef, silicon valley has me feeling the same most of the time. At work I'm surrounded by geniuses, literally - the guy two labs down has a Nobel prize, for example. And outside of work I'm surrounded by the ultrathin, ultrawealthy, glamorous women who seem to dominate the region. I went in to the local J Crew to get some pants and they had to get them from the back; they only had sizes 00-6 in the front rack. That kind of thing. Thankfully I have a bootcamp class that's late at night, so only working slobs like me ever go and we can commiserate.
Terrible mobile phone version of 3FC has appeared. You may not see me as much as it's so fussy to get where I want to get. With a busy life I don't have the patience to click through different screens. It was absolutely fine how it was, guys.
I still use a desktop computer. I have to upgrade it every 4 years or so as they keep making the browsers more and more complicated but it does me just fine. I don't need a computer to help me pick up dog poop so the smartphone is not a necessity for me as it is for so many of you in "office" type jobs (walls, desk, phone, washroom, etc.).
It is annoying that the makers of all the devices keep coming out with new ones and then not supporting the older models. It's one-upmanship among the young but is it necessary for most adults? I think not.
I do find it humorous that DH usually says "d*mn thing is so slow" if anything takes more than one second to load.
That said, promotions haven't been announced publicly but I am hoping the guy who got the career opportunity I missed due to my maternity leave also got promoted, he definitely deserves it.
Hard to believe. I'm trying to decide whether to do a birthday party for them or just have family over for dinner on their actual birthday (it's a Wednesday this year). If we do something on a weekend we might be able to get my BIL and SIL to come into town for it, which would be nice. I doubt my sister would be able to come out from CA but BIL and SIL each live about a 2 hour drive from here so it's much more reasonable.
so the smartphone is not a necessity for me as it is for so many of you in "office" type jobs (walls, desk, phone, washroom, etc.).
