I can’t really blog in any detail about work, but I felt I just had to comment on how cheerful everyone seems to be, given what’s going on - or, at least, rumoured to be going on.
I’m not talking about people dancing on tables and throwing parties, but neither are we all walking around looking like the world’s coming to an end.
May be it’s some kind of delerium and we’ll all snap out of it and start slitting our wrists.
Reading back over my last entry, I wondered if perhaps I’m whinging way too much. There are many with far worse issues than my own and I have much to be happy about. I am aware of this, but at the end of some work days I’m preoccupied with farkedness of my workplace and my part in it and this is all I can think of to blog about. So I thought it might be a good idea to record the things I have to be happy about.
Work-related things to be happy about: I met Mark at work, I work with some lovely people, I work on things that I would never get the opportunity to in other workplaces, I am relatively well paid, I would have to do something seriously wrong to get sacked, nothing I work on is so important or fundemental to anyone’s wellbeing that a stuff up is going to result in anything more than embarrassment and expense to the company, I am safe and protected from the weather while I do my work.
Non-work-related things to be happy about: I am loved, I have people and furries to love, I have a nice and comfortable house, I have all the appliances and gadgets I need or want to make my life easier, there is no one in my life who is scares or hurts me, I am reasonably healthy and getting healthier. There’s probalby more I could list, but I think that covers the big items.
All of that said, I think there will be some serious retail therapy required to get over this week…
I feel a bit like I’m working without a net at the moment. Since our little internal re-org I’ve got a new boss and am responsible for a particular product (which must remain nameless). This is not a problem in its self, except that my new boss is incredibly busy and almost never available to talk to.
The kind of stuff I’m doing at the moment is along the lines of combining test management (which I have skills in) with project/deployment management (which I haven’t done before), with fairly severe constraints around it as I have no authority at all to increase staffing, shift timelines, etc. I’m not particularly confident in my judgement because this is a new type of role for me and I don’t feel supported by my manager because he’s too busy to know or be very interested in what I’m doing, so it’s quite stressful. This is not to say that I want my hand held. Not at all. What I do want and need, though, is a sounding board and an understanding of where the limits are, ie. at what point I need to refer a decision up.
At the end of the day I know that none of the things we work on are really all that important. All they really are are marketing tools for one of the monolith’s divisions. And if I stuff up it’s not the end of the world.
Of course, with the state of things currently, I could have another job, or no job at all, in the near future, so it’s also important not to get too invested in what I’m doing. It’s like a game of musical chairs. When the music stops you sit in the nearest chair and that determines what dance you do when it starts again. … Well the metaphor (or is it an analogy) sounded better in my head, but you know what I mean.
Either way I could do without coming home tired and wrung out from walking the tightrope all day.
I sat up later than I intended to last night while Mark was out, watching Alexandra’s Project. I decided to watch it last night because Mark seemed reluctant to see it when it arrived, courtesy of an online dvd rental service which shall remain nameless, so being on my own seemed like a good time to see it. And, yes, it is a harsh film, but not as harsh as I expected from what I’d read & heard. And it is bloody good, but not for anyone who has a problem with nudity or sex on screen.
The I went to bed at about 11, which just happened to coincide with the arrival of a series of thunder storms. It was no time at all before I had 2 dogs on the bed with me, one shivering and the other attempting to sit on my head.
I wrestled with them on and off for a couple of hours before deciding that it was a pointless exercise and I might as well watch telly. The three of us then sat in the lounge room and watched Narnia for a while until the thunder had stopped completly at 2am. Mark got home a little after 3am.
Finn slept through all of the thunder, apart from a couple of grumbles when the dog that lives behind us got going. He did not, however, sleep in this morning. He started talking at about 6am. Mark said to ignore him, but I couldn’t ignore the combination of the munchkin and the nutty puppies, so I got up shortly after.
I am stuffed but I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to bed when Mark gets up. I might give it a try, though…
I haven’t posted any knitting entries recently, but i have been knitting.
Apart from some socks for Mark (I think he put a picture of them on Flickr), I’ve finished a vest for myself, which I like but I’m not sure I like it on me… I’ve also got a partially completed vest that I had to stop looking at for a bit, which is also for me. And I’m working on a Clapotis-style scarf for The Mavis’ birthday at the start of November.
The autumn edition of Knitty is out and I’ve been priniting off patterns this afternoon to add to my collection. So far I’ve printed up Flora, Edgar, Cinxia and Ella. Ella’s designer, Wendy Wonnacott also has her own site with links to other patterns she’s done.
I have grand plans for some knitted Christmas presents which will be cheap, since I’ve already spent a small fortune on yarn.
There was a knock on the door as I was getting ready for work this morning.
When I opened it there was a man there with a big parcel for us, which, unusually, was not something I’d bought on eBay.
Mark & Finn had already left for the day, so I put it on the dining room table for them to open when they get home.
Thank you Shannon, it’s a lovley surprise!
I finally went and did a full circuit at the gym tonight. I had my first appointment last Monday night, but didn’t get back later in the week for various reasons.
Tonight I took it reasonably easy. I’m very unfit and, being slightly anemic, I get tired & out of breath really easily and then lose my balance, so I didn’t want to risk damaging myself. I still managed to work up a bit of a sweat and I’m sure I’ll have some complaining muscles tomorrow.
I was trying to work out which nights I’ll go each week and couldn’t come up with a formula that sounded foolproof. Then I realised that I will definitely want to wash my hair the morning after a workout (I hate washing my hair at night) so, given that I wash my hair every second day and don’t want to do it every day, I decided that the days of each week when I DON’T wash my hair will be the days I go to the gym. That way my hair will be due for a wash the next morning anyway. I know that probably sounds really silly, but I need to rationalise all these things to get rid of the myriad of excuses I can give myself for not doing things.
I think I even kind of enjoyed it too. The good thing about having a recorded voice tell you when to move onto the next piece of equipment is that there’s one less thing to think about. You don’t need to count reps or time anything. Just do your thing until the voice says move. It makes it kind of meditative because I was able to clear my mind of everything other than what I was doing at that moment. Like walking meditation with weights.
When the alarm went off at 6am I decided that I was not going to work today. I’d been awake for ages with a Foozle who did not want to sleep and I really didn’t feel I could face the office. Nor did I think I should drive while tired and dizzy, since I think that was my problem on Friday.
Usually Mark gets up when Finn wakes during the night. This happens because I sometimes don’t hear him and because Mark insists on doing it because he knows that I don’t cope well on little sleep. Last night, though, I made a point of getting up because Mark had been up so early yesterday and I figured that he really needed a decent night’s sleep before facing the grade 3s again. There was also a little arrogance involved. I was sure I could settle the Foozle and get him back to sleep quickly and we’d all get a good night’s sleep. I was wrong.
I don’t think Finn was actually awake when I went into his room. His eyes were open and he was chatty, but he really didn’t seem conscious. So my first mistake was not backing out of the room quietly before I woke him. When I did wake him he asked to be picked up, which he rarely does when he’s in bed. So I picked him up. Second mistake. Once I was holding him, Finn was really smoochy and cuddly. Again this unusual, so I was loath to put him back down. When I did he got upset and I didn’t want to make an otherwise very happy boy cry, so I picked him up again. Mistake number 3.
I took him into the spare bed with me and attempted to settle him there, thinking that once he drifted off to sleep I’d pop him back in the cot. After an hour or so of wrestles, blanket rearrangements and aborted attempts to dive off the side of the bed, I gave up. I put Finn back in his cot and resolved to put up with the crying. Of course, the crying was quickly replaced by chatting to his bears.
When I had put Finn back in the cot his blanket, which is made of polar fleece, had sparked with static electricity as I was arranging it over him. This freaked me out somewhat in my sleep-deprived and rapidly becoming nutty state. I couldn’t settle for thinking about all the possible permutations of baby, sparks and flammable things. And Foozley was chatting very loudly. So I got up again. Got an old woollen blanket out of the linen cupboard and heated a bottle for the Foozle. Gave him the bottle, changed his nappy and swapped the blankets. Hopped back into the spare bed and listened for the chatter to turn sleepy.
I must have been drifting off to sleep because I got a huge fright when Mark came into the room. Lying on my good ear, I didn’t hear him coming through the house and the first I knew of him was big dark shape looming over me. That did me in and I dissolved into tears. Mark probably spent a good half hour or so settling me.
Once settled and back in my own bed I did go to sleep. But I woke about an hour later from a nightmare. I very rarely have nightmares and I don’t remember the content of this one, but I do know that I woke up with my heart pounding and sweating profusely. It might have only taken me a few minutes to go to sleep again, but it felt like hours. So when the alarm went off the day seriously was not happening.
The moral of this tale? Mark can get up during the night for Finn any time he wants to.
Mark has not really had the best Fathers’ Day.
Up at 4.30am to tend to a wakeful Foozle. Back to bed at 8.00-ish and up again just before 12 to race off to my parents’ for lunch and dinner has not given him much of a Sunday.
It’s 9pm and he washing dishes and working away preparing for the week while I sit here blogging. And at no point has he complained or shown any sign of annoyance.
Is it any wonder the Foozle & I love him to bits…
I found Badger’s blog via a circuitous route - a link in one blog to an Ebay auction, which linked to her blog. And I found it late in the piece. But, strange as it may sound - given the content - I’m glad I found it.
Badger’s eloquence in the face of the thing we fear the most is a salutory lesson in how to live. To watch someone you love die and be able to write it with an honesty and clarity that leaves me speechless in admiration for her talent and sorrow for her loss.
It reminds me that big red cars are not so important as they might seem.
