|
|
| zephyr just blew my mind |
| |
04:31pm | nov.12.09 |
|
| |
mood:  shocked
| my adorable old man has always been particularly cute when he "pretend sprays" things in the house. obviously, it's cute because he is pretend claiming things :)
i was just sitting in the hot tub and witnessed with my own eyes, him ACTUALLY spraying something.
my head exploded.
in his entire life, i have never seen it happen for real, and now i have to wonder when he figured it out and if he understands inside vs. outside.
i have fear in my heart. |
|
| speak your mind |
|
| november? really? |
| |
02:35pm | nov.08.09 |
|
| |
mood:  calm
| it's hard to believe we are careening toward thanksgiving already.
things continue to be busy but good. for the last couple of weeks, the boy has worked less and slipped back to his earlier state of houseboy, which (of course) makes me giddy. i wouldn't cry if this was the trend for the future.
the good:
we just ordered this for the greatroom. 360 degree swivel will mean this baby can play nicely with both the living room and the kitchen side. i'm very excited :)
i thought my gerber daisy discover card was very me, but now my capital one card has a photo of jack and ponce as kittens asleep together. it's a good thing i am no longer a compulsive spender, or these adorable credit cards would be problematic!
we are slowly making headway on prepping the garden for winter and next spring. today we got 3 bins of chicken poop from dave & rebecca so we can get fertilizer in to enrich the soil all winter.
next weekend is early friends-thanksgiving with dave & rebecca's closest friends and then we have thanksgiving proper in seattle with our beloveds there. i am starting to feel like the karma angels are purposefully creating loving, friend-filled thanksgiving events to help wash away my original distaste for the holiday :)
the bad:
apparently we missed one of the cats presents to us, and downstairs has the distinct smell of death in the air. we have torn apart the zen room and bedroom and found no culprit. the search continues. |
|
| read 2 comment - speak your mind |
|
| credit card update |
| |
01:32pm | nov.01.09 |
|
| |
mood:  productive
| man, that felt good.
i finally got a new personal and business card lined out, and then called citibank today to cancel my two cards.
they, of course, passed me over to the Account Specialist (aka - the hard sell to keep the card). he pointed out to me that i pay my balance in full, and i am a 8 year member in good standing - does it really matter to me what the interest rate is when it doesn't effect me?
and i had the pleasure of saying to him that i understood that the rate did not impact me because of how i choose to manage my finances, but that their practice of forcing such high interest rates on their existing customers - EVEN THE GREAT ONES - was a business practice I could not support and that I no longer wanted to do business with them.
he asked if there was anything they could do to keep my business, and i told him if i saw citibank make substantial changes to their interest rate and other customer-facing policies to be fair to their customers, i would consider coming back, but not until then.
eat that, fuckers. (not that i really matter, but still :) |
|
| read 2 comment - speak your mind |
|
| you know you are a northwest gardener when.... |
| |
07:04pm | oct.26.09 |
|
| |
mood:  content
| it's 50 degrees with intermittent drizzle on a sunday morning, and you think to yourself, "i can move those plants and get the garden prepped so it can hit the ground running in the spring!"
i swear that this weekend, i earned my first points toward being a true northwesterner. in previous years, the southern girl in me recoiled at the idea of mucking about when the weather was already so far gone into "winter". this year, i put on silk thermal underwear, heavy cargo pants, 3 layers of torso covering (thermal, fleece and rain coat), a hat, rain boots and garden gloves and worked in the garden for 5 hours.
i am stoked :)
also, i was thoroughly charmed by being in the garden out front and hearing the boy jeering or cheering the dallas cowboys as they played. even after all of these years, it blows my mind a little! |
|
| read 2 comment - speak your mind |
|
| when you know the answer will come... |
| |
12:20pm | oct.22.09 |
|
| |
mood:  cheerful
| you know that feeling? when you know that you will have that brilliant idea/breakthrough but it hasn't arrived yet? this is how i just phrased it in IM with a coworker:
the edge of my brain is tingling with the answer
i rather like that :) |
|
| read 1 comment - speak your mind |
|
| the principle |
| |
07:16pm | oct.19.09 |
|
| |
mood:  annoyed
| i think i have to fire my citibank credit cards.
even though i pay my balance in full every month, and this will never in theory affect me, i received a letter today informing me that their new interest rate will be 29.99% going forward.
that is the most obnoxious thing i have ever heard, and i don't think i can do business with a company who would do that. |
|
| read 11 comment - speak your mind |
|
| a nice example of my team |
| |
01:44pm | oct.09.09 |
|
| |
mood:  amused
| i sent that pic to my team so they could see the revised belen.
my art director's reply included the following question:
You didn't lose any of your goddess/jedi/nerd/goth powers did you?!!!!
the best part about that question is that each of those is the highest of compliments in isolation, much less strung together :)
and on a similar note, this amuses the hell out of me. |
|
| read 1 comment - speak your mind |
|
| collaboration |
| |
05:58pm | oct.08.09 |
|
| |
mood:  accomplished
| i feel like a million bucks.
we just had a 4 hour offsite workshop with my team.
i created an outline, and we treated each topic as something to brainstorm together, rather than me lecturing on it. i asked questions and the team collaboratively explored the answers and spinoff questions.
i wrote those topics on a flip chart - one on each page, and everyone had markers that they wrote down their contributions on each topic. those are our meeting notes.
i am so blown away by the session, how much came out of it, how their collective knowledge plays out and spins off each other. its humbling to see how smart, creative, and open these guys can be when asked to contribute, show initiative, and be part of the solution.
today, i feel like a rockstar who manages rockstars :) better yet, rockstars who are becoming self-aware of what they are great at and what their challenges are - and they are excited about solving those challenges.
man. how awesome is that? |
|
| read 2 comment - speak your mind |
|
| i am eating THE BEST... |
| |
07:27am | oct.08.09 |
|
| |
mood:  bouncy
| room service breakfast. Everything is cooked to perfection and it is a lovely start to the morning.
it's an odd thing...being on a business trip with spending allowance.
i mean, i'm a simple girl. and i don't eat much in the way of quantity. so it's really bizarre to me to have $50 a day for meals, especially when many lunches and dinners are social situations where people won't let me pay. and then i have leftovers and i might as well eat those for breakfast.
so this morning, i am trying to just enjoy the decadence of a $20 breakfast brought to my room so i can sit around in my robe and chirp to you :) |
|
| read 1 comment - speak your mind |
|
| my mad macgyver skills |
| |
10:44pm | oct.07.09 |
|
| |
mood: amused
| 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! :D |
|
| read 2 comment - speak your mind |
|
| holy cow, what a whirlwind! |
| |
01:22pm | aug.30.09 |
|
| |
mood:  busy
| 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. |
|
| read 2 comment - speak your mind |
|
| important data from... |
| |
08:48am | aug.20.09 |
|
| |
mood: amused
| 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 :) |
|
| speak your mind |
|
| ah, memories of a former version of me... |
| |
10:26pm | aug.16.09 |
|
| |
mood:  hungry
| 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 ;) |
|
| speak your mind |
|
| stupid brain |
| |
03:25am | aug.14.09 |
|
| |
mood:  awake
| 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! |
|
| speak your mind |
|
| yay for warm fuzzies |
| |
12:08pm | aug.12.09 |
|
| |
mood:  loved
| 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! |
|
| speak your mind |
|
| this moment |
| |
04:30pm | aug.11.09 |
|
| |
mood:  indescribable
| 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 ;) |
|
| read 9 comment - speak your mind |
|
| i heart the pacific nw |
| |
12:25pm | aug.04.09 |
|
| |
mood: enamoured
| so last month, after reading an article about how some of the top ideas for how the health care insurance industry should run was being modeled after a co-op (group health - ghc.org) here in the NW, i investigated and finally committed to a real full-coverage insurance plan (at a very reasonable pricetag, i might add!) - as opposed to the hit-by-a-bus coverage that we have carried for the last decade.
i am reading through their literature, and i just read something that brings a tear to my eye.
over 30 options for oral contraceptives are covered in their prescription plan, including plan b. i have no desire to go back to oral contraceptives, but i have had SO MANY RANTS about how most insurance companies will pay for viagra, but not birth control for women, and the fact that this company is one of the few makes me even happier with my choice.
yay! :D |
|
| read 4 comment - speak your mind |
|
< previous 20
|
lighter
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}