Category: Flashback to Livejournal

setup:
my friend stacie here in philly invited me for dinner monday night, and her husband sent me home with 2 varieties of his home brewed beers. (sidenote – he also is a graphic artist and makes all his own labels….these bottles are so coming home with me and being added to the bottle collection!)

challenge:
last night, i had a butter knife to pry a bottle open. tonight, i had no such tools. none. but the beer was calling, begging, pleading….

solution:
there is a retractable clothes line in the bathroom. i managed to use the metal clasp that you hook the clothes line into to pry open the beer with minimal spillage.

i feel like a rock star! 😀

after a flurry of 3 weeks of schneider guests, i find myself at the start of the first free, quiet, at-home weekend we have had in a month. and next week, i fly out to philly again!

please note the time. both the cats and my body have apparently grown accustomed to my OBNOXIOUS new early morning hours, and thus, it is 7:45 on a saturday, and i simply cannot sleep any longer due to jack’s insistence and my tossing and turning.

*sighs*

but you know, my complaints are few. see why!

i thought this would be interesting to share. my company has everyone take this assessment called StrengthFinders, and these were my results.

Top 5 Strengths
Achiever
Strategic
Relator
Maximizer
Empathy

if you care to read, here are the full descriptions…

yay for a brief update! 🙂

my trip to PA the week before last was an experience packed to the brim. the best parts: meeting my beloved coworkers in person and strengthening the bond we already had, realizing that this company is filled with a lot of brilliant, talented people who will benefit from the new direction my boss is bringing, and having the opportunity to try on this new, high-responsibility role. the challenges were long days, lots of juggling, and the sheer overwhelm of the task at hand. but all in all, people were so welcoming, encouraging and understanding that i left PA aglow with what a good choice i had made.

coming home to my boy and kitties was a good reminder of how amazing my quiet little life is, and how i will work to protect and keep that balance in my life. the boy is taking such good care of me, and i am grateful that he is willing to get through this tough initial period with me by being my partner in every way possible.

last week was my first real one in the saddle, and by sheer force of will and a lot of hard work, my team managed to keep the train on the tracks, despite a challenging production schedule and many points at which we were assaulted by unexpected hurdles. by the end of the week, every member of my team had thanked me for making a big difference in how the week played out, and that as a result, they were having evenings with their families rather than working all night. that made me feel like a million bucks and my debrief with my boss at the end of the week was really good. i didn’t get to any of the organization/process things i wanted to start, but i still have to count the week as a victory 🙂

on the home front, we finished putting in edging at the farm, and my veggie garden actually looks like defined daisy beds/paths now!!! i’ll take pictures soon, but i am beside myself with glee. we are getting fresh cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, edamame, snow peas, tomatoes and strawberries out of the garden almost daily and they are all so tasty.

next weekend we are headed to yakima to camp and wine-taste for fri-mon. and then we begin the Great Schneider Gathering of 2009, which involves david’s brother and his girlfriend sarah being in for a while, then paul overlapping with the first part of david’s folks visit, with a house full of schneiders from 9/3 – 9/22. i’m looking forward to it, but juggling my time will definitely be challenging.

when filling out a background check form that wants the last 3 places of residence, what source does belen use for referencing that information?

amazon.com’s list of my mailing addresses

i am highly amused 🙂

a decade ago (and no beautiful gypsy boy), the pizza boy who just showed up at my door would have ended up on his back for my amusement.

ah, i amused myself as he clearly made his play as the one who spoke to me on the phone and told me he really liked my name and he was so cute and alternaboy and young and had no clue what do next.

and i processed this while thinking….JESUS CHRIST I AM HUNGRY!

still, its pretty charming to still be the chick the delivery boy wants to hook up with 😉

note the time and sigh for me. apparently my brain really wants to keep working on the enormity of the task at hand, which is more annoying than the task at hand. i realize this is a Process and no one thinks i get my head around it overnight. thank god 🙂

so what does belen do at 3am when she can’t sleep?

1) take melatonin

2) while waiting for that to take effect, research options for a tag-based and snippet-based way of capturing and organizing info, since everything i am getting and processing is in piecemeal, and most of it i will document eventually.

you know…us OCD people….we need lists and fragments of future things to flesh out and passing thoughts that will need to be inquired into….

and in the blackness of insomnia night, i discovered Scrivener.

holy mother of god, this made both the writing geek AND the organization geek in my almost faint. its only for mac and its a perfect example of why i love the snotty little creative community of mac users 😉

i have the trial downloaded and the intro video made my toes curl.

i foresee many hours of capturing thoughts and eventually molding them into documentation that will make my life infinitely easier.

and on that note, perhaps i’ll try sandwiching myself between a sleeping boy and 2 sleeping kitties and actually sleep!

it makes me feel all warm and happy to think that 3 out of the 5 evenings i will have philly will be filled with cozy dinners with various coworkers (and their families) that i have known for more than 2 years but never met.

i suppose it’s a little rare and odd to have forged these kinds of long-distance bonds with coworkers, and that makes me feel doubly blessed!

every now and then, you can look at a moment in your life, point at it as it is happening, and say:

“this moment – right here – marks the beginning of a whole new era in my life.”

today is officially one of those days.

after nine and a half years as a self-employed freelance designer, i have just taken a job as the Creative Director for a Philadelphia-based performance and learning design company.

my favorite client recently merged with this company, and it seems that my skillset is a really good match for the needs they have in leading their graphics team in a new direction. i’ll still be working from home, though for the next few months, regular visits to the east coast will be a necessity.

i am still reeling no small bit with the enormity of the situation – leaving behind the independence and flux-and-flow of being a contractor, remembering what things like *benefits* and *technical support* and *PAID VACATION* mean, and wrapping my brain around the huge shift to doing more managing than designing (at least initially).

mostly, i am giddy to the point of vibrating at the infinite possibilities that lie ahead of me….what new things i will be learning….how much i will grow and explore in this new endeavor.

and on sunday, i get on a plane for PA. for the first time ever, i will meet face-to-face with coworkers from my old company that i already love dearly, and i will begin to forge new relationships with a whole new crop of people who are destined to be swept away by my charm 😉

thanks to mistressmaya on facebook for this fabulous story – it made us smile.

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