User talk:TheEileen/Jun 2007
June 2007
6-2-07
Foofer list updated and so is the wiki. No new posted but some movement between waiting, available, and post-processing. I'm managing to keep up with some mentoring pretty much every day now. I work on my three projects in F2, although I wish I could convince the PM of one of them to unavail the waiting for F2 so that the first volumes would be done first, rather than in any old order. Another set of books I find myself half-wishing to take over the PM'ship of, if only to manage them the way I like. Grin. I work on my few projects in F1 (usually off the list) and PM. I've still not headed back to PP land and won't until I finish off the other software I'm trying to figure out. Only when I'm complete comfy will I try again.
I got my bookcases all up, using my handy-dandy drill (for wall brackets, and then screwing stuff together). I felt very "toolbelt-diva-ish". They look great against the light green walls and I did begin bringing up and unpacking my books. It is wonderful. I immediately came across several books I wanted to re-read and did start some of them. I also came across books I thought "why'd I keep that?" Hee. Since I'm participating in the garage sale, they are going on the pile. In fact, I find I have a fair number of things I can get rid of this way. Odd gifts I never wanted but couldn't regift. Stuff that accumulated, etc. I thought at first the main thing would be to help John do his stuff, but he ended up only really wanting to get rid of his office chairs and I think dining room table and chairs (I wonder if he'll remember to bring them over in time). Nothing else. I have books, CDs, and Videos. Some new, some that have been on half.com for a while, so if they sell - woo hoo. I have some small furniture. A lot of knick-knacks. Some garage / hardware stuff and unused paint. Garden tools. I am going to try to move some of my jewelry (both that which I made and that I have). It may actually be a fair amount of stuff and let's see if I can make any $$ off of it all. It's all day, I think John will be out of town that weekend, I'm trying to decide if I should ask my friend to drop by to help out in exchange for a meal. She's friendly and would be chatty with any customers, but may have health issues and/or not want to hang out for that long. But if she could help in the afternoon ... it would be nice. Plus, she's fun to have food with.
I have the stain for the futon. The contractor for my house (still waiting to start fixing, but I did find a wonderful flooring I like), gave me a tip on fixing the other toilet, so that's a job for this weekend also. But I may just read, read, read. We'll see.
6-5-07
Foofer list and wiki updated.
Well it was ghastly hot this weekend, meaning about 82 degrees. In my house? 87 degrees. For two days after the temp dropped. And when that first happens, I can do nothing but lie about and pant and be unhappy and uncomfortable. So beyond some laundry and dishes and minimal tidying, I did nothing but sit and pant and sweat and then start to get sick. Swollen glands, sore throat, then I started throwing temps of 102 and 103 (when I'm already too hot - oy vey). It dropped down to the 70 and then 60 today, cool, rainy and boom, sore throat gone and I feel so much better. I truly am, ... weird. :D
6-7-07
Updated wiki.
6-9-07
Updated the foofer list and the wiki page. Not a lot to do here. I really should check out some CP, which requires me to figure out my photoshop. And I think Amy needs me to look at some quizzes. I should do that too.
At home, it's prep up for the garage sale next weekend and stain the couch frame and I think I want to go see Ocean's Eleven. And clean the shower stall. And fix the toilet. And go grocery shopping. And I really, really, really just want to play SIMS instead of proof or foof or cp or mentor or anything. :hee:
6-13-07
Updated foofer list and wiki. Nice work by the team!
Life is crazy, house is crazy, I am crazy. :grin: I did stain the futon frame. I did see Oceans Thirteen. I did not do any of the other chores I needed to, including prepping for garage sale. Which I now must go do, if I plan to make any money and get rid of any stuff.
6-16-07
Updated foofer list and wiki. We are rapidly running out of English projects over 100. I'm trying to balance interesting with {R} with everything else. Oooh, I just realized that pupper used to always do "most inactive" and that was hard for me to track so I just went with percentages, but with angelsmom's page AND with the inactive pages left over from 10k day, I could find most inactive. hmmm.
Three days to really prep up for the garage sale and naturally we didn't sell a lot. We sold some, and I got rid of at least two things I really wanted to, but other things I was hoping would go did not. I expected to bargain, very few people thought to try it. Or they'd simply say, "books at garage sales are usually 25 cents" and I'd point to DeeDee's old books which were. Mine were brand new and some could probably actually go back to the bookseller. I was asking $2 (but I'd go down to $1 - no one asked - sigh). I did make some money, now over the next week I'll put stuff up and "back". Many things are out that needed to come out. Other stuff needs to be packed right back up.
Mentoring, Foofing, still haven't figured out photoshop, oy. Must look at quizzes and answer Amy's question. Will do so tomorrow, I swear! Oh, and fix my toilet. Oh and the people are coming to rip my floor out of my bathroom and then :sob: leave it off for a few days to dry everything out. :sob again:
6-19-07
Updated foofer list and wiki. Worked on mentoring. Am tired. Floor ripping up was so minor I was surprised.
6-22-07
Updated foofer list and wiki. Not a lot of movement. The F1 page is emptying out at a dizzying pace. I am working, when I can, almost exclusively in F2 as a result. It's stacking up.
That being said, I'm not managing to do much foofing for the last two weeks. I've been mentoring, reading/responding in forums, and that's about it. Work got so crazy stressful that when I come home all I want to do is play mindless computer games, if I stare at a screen at all. I used to be able to spend some time on break or lunch reading forums, doing some pages (I could do cotgrave's in my sleep now, although let's see eventually what the PPer has to say about that), even mentoring. Now, if I get five minutes to breath and that is barely an exaggeration, I want to just do deep breathing and / or stretches or my other balancing activities. Trying not to flip into a manic state, but I may be too late. I know I was snapping at people today, because my feeling was "will you people grow some brains!!! and think for yourself". Actually, most everyone really cuts me slack and I appreciate that. I do know, because I've been told, that this is also because I so rarely flip out and get snippy and get behind such that people have to wait on me. That's the biggie right now and the stressful part. So much is coming in new and with deadlines, that all my regular work is suffering. I can usually turn requests around in hours, if not a day. Now it's 2, 3, 5 days before I can do anything and I hate that. I had managed to stop myself from trying to do everything as soon as it came in, that was totally unrealistic for me and for them to expect. But I must have said to nearly every person I spoke to today, "I'm sorry, I haven't had a chance to..."
Next week will be equally bad. 2nd outside reviewers here in three weeks. And they stay for the week. The first set only really needed me for two out of the five days, with only one other day of that week as followup action items. This week was 3 days of doing meetings and action reports and starting up some of our new programs and processes and BOOM here comes another team. This one is focused on MY speciality and there is nothing more chilling than reading, "We'll be spending most of our time with Eileen". So there's another week's worth of work out the window because I'll have no time to do it. I've semi-vowed that they can spend part of that time WATCHING me do my regular job because I refuse to cancel my regularly scheduled training I give. I really dislike the attitude of "oh, treat them like they are gods and don't question anything, just give 'em what they want until they go away" is a very bad one. Not that this group has given any indication of being like that, btw, but that some of my co-workers and higher ups do seem to have that "speak softly to power and treat them differently". And then wonder why the Powers That Be don't understand the real situation or make effective decisions. I was taught that the entire point of my job was to speak truth, particularly to the powerful above me because if I don't give them all the facts especially when I think they are making the wrong decision, then I have failed. If I tell a boss, "this is against regulations" or "this will result in a loss of $20,000 dollars" and they do it anyway, because of whatever other information they may have that I do not, then I've done my job. But if I don't tell them that and then there is trouble, how can I try to claim they "should have" known. Reviewers and Central Office staff are not psychic. They only know what people have the guts to tell them.
So, I know what I am going to be like and what I'm going to do. I'll do extra yoga this weekend and re-read Order of the Phoenix to be ready for the movie. Let's see what next week brings and I'm going to view it as a positive experience. Good open mind. Positive spirit. I'll eventually get to all the work that is getting put off. Maybe if I'm lucky, these people will not only see the roadblock to progress that are three of the staff (unfortunately all the higher management) that others have seen, but DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, which not one other set of outside reviewers and people from Central Office have done. I wish everyone was not defeated by the passive-aggressive trio. Okay, wait, positive... POSITIVE. :D
6-30-07
Updated the foofer list on the 28th and updated the wiki today. I've been sick for some days, and am only 2 hours away from it being 24 hours since I last "had an episode". I've eaten and it seems to be staying inside me. This is good.
The house is coming along nicely, my new flooring is cool. Now all I need is the toilet to go back in (not sure why that didn't happen yesterday when everything else did). Then in a few weeks, they'll fix the leaky roof. Then I can have the inside damage repaired there. I must remember to pull out the itemized list so I remember how much I'm paying.
Oh and the outside people were okay. My positive attitude helped, they weren't obnoxious in any way, and at a certain point I realized that they really were just suggestions and observations so it was listen, take what you can from it, and don't argue about the stuff that absolutely wouldn't work. :-)
Next week is fourth of July so have to go get hotel room NOW. Bye.
And now back to Index to 2007