katehaney

01:53 pm: Missed my blogiversary
But since it was yesterday, I think I'm still within the grace period.

So. 8 years. Yeah. Or yeah!

I'm glad I did this. I know I'll continue to be glad of continuing it, as long as I, y'know, continue. It's been a commitment mostly honored in the breach in recent months. Oops.

Teddy's great, Longmeadow's great, new job is getting more great. All is well.

And it's Mother's Day! I'm celebrating by sneezing, hacking, and trying not to fall asleep. And helping Teddy as little as possible with his egg-drop project.* Later, I'm going to pay some bills. Because I lead a wild and crazy life.


* Because it's his project, not mine. Not because I'm lazy and sniffly. F'rrealz.

03:11 pm: lots of new stuff
Despite my good intentions, I'm still not posting as often as I'd like. Oops!

I'm adjusting to the new job, the new schedule, and the new lifestyle.

The job isn't quite what I'd thought, but I think it'll work out just fine anyway. I'm managing more people than I thought I would be (fortunately, that's the part of the job I was most looking forward to). The department and company are more in flux than I'd anticipated, but that means there will be even more opportunities than I'd hoped for to effect change.

So it's good, just different.

My peers are fabulous. My team is solid. The company is great.

But ironing? I don't like ironing. And when I want to look professional, or at least not like a slob, I don't want to be all wrinkly.

Wearing shoes all day isn't great, either. I'm going to need to find better socks. There's a lot of walking; the main building is huge and I work with people in other buildings as well. Walking is good, as long as I have the right shoes and socks and allow sufficient time between meetings (~15 minutes, just to get from one to the next).

So I'm adjusting. Just not exactly to the things or in the ways I'd expected.

* * * * *

On an extremely happy note, I finally got my unemployment money. It took almost 3 months! Egads.

06:35 pm: no excuses
{not writing about Boston yet - too raw... maybe later [maybe not]}

Y'know, I thought I'd be blogging all the time 'cause I wasn't working.

Not so much.

I start my new job on Monday. I had a lovely chat with my new boss yesterday and am all the more excited about starting. I won't be posting much about it here, 'cause I like to keep the work stuff separate, but I'm sure I'll be dropping a hint or two over time. Some parts of the new job are radically different from what I've been doing (moving to a large, successful company; working onsite; having to wear adult-type clothes), some are a natural step forward (managing at a higher level with larger budgets), some are kinda sideways (back in IT instead of R&D), some continuing what I've been doing for a while (managing geeks, working on change initiatives). So it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Part of why I haven't posted here is because it felt risky and painful to write about all the turmoil and writing about the actual job search would be, y'know, stupid. But mostly I just got out of the habit, which is also, y'know, stupid. I miss the LJ community and I wish we were all posting more... preferably starting with the rest of you. I'm selfish that way.

I also moved into a muuuuch sloooower gear after I got the job. I've kept up with job applications, because DUA requires it*, but have been much less diligent about networking (except for following up with previous contacts). So instead of having a few calls or interviews a day, I've had a few a week... and none the past week except catching up with friends (mostly work friends, but friends nonetheless), which I don't really count.

And of course this past week was just so horrible in so many ways that conversations focused elsewhere.

The past month has felt much more like vacation, which is lovely. I haven't accomplished much, which is less lovely but perhaps necessary to that feeling of vacation. And I'm getting kinda bored, which is quite wonderful. I'm not looking forward to getting up early and having less freedom and flexibility, but I'm definitely excited about having new and interesting stuff to do.

All in all, I'm extraordinarily fortunate to have financial security (especially given that I still haven't received any unemployment checks, though I got my approval within 10 days of applying), to have found a really good job quite quickly, and most especially to have the support of my wonderful family and friends through the whole ordeal.

Many, many thanks to you all!


* and in truth I'm a bit paranoid that The Job will somehow fall through and I don't want to have to start all over.

03:47 pm: books
Blargh. In the rapid transition off my company laptop, I apparently lost the notes I'd taken on books I've read recently... well, not so recently now, as I'm terribly behind. :sigh:

Oh well. Perhaps I'll remember those I've since put away (HA HA HA FAT CHANCE). In any case, there are enough left to put together something reasonably substantial.

So. Books.

Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational is quite wonderful. It examines the way we make decisions and describes how we (as the book blurb says) "consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate." Good stuff.

I bought and read the first three Nikki Heat books "by" Richard Castle after getting hooked on the TV show.* I don't know if Andrew Marlowe, Rob Bowman, or the ABC publicity department actually wrote them. They're not very good books, but they're reasonably good pulp fiction, which is what they're supposed to be. And very elaborate cross-marketing, too.

"Moonlight Masquerade" is the latest in the Edilean series from Jude Deveraux. Sadly, it's probably the weakest in the series... or perhaps it just feels that way because Sophie is built up in the other books and doesn't live up to the hype. Dunno. I'll re-read it (Deveraux at her worst is better than many others near their best), but I wasn't delighted by it.

It took me a while to get into Roger Ebert's memoir, Life Itself. It has a stream-of-consciousness feel, which I don't ordinarily like (I prefer books a bit... tidier, more deliberate). But it grew on me, and Ebert's certainly had an interesting life. It's rather longer than it had to be, I think - could've used some editing - but still reasonably compelling.

I only bought Ken Follett's Fall of Giants because there was one of those buy-3-get-1-free deals and it popped up first on the list after I'd picked the 3 I'd wanted. As with Pillars of the Earth, it took me a couple of hundred pages (~20%) to get into it, but I did enjoy it. I'm not usually all that interested in history, but his characters are vivid and compelling. It also fit in with my recent enjoyment of Downton Abbey and rekindled my interested in Maisie Dobbs (I re-read all of Winspear too).

Robin Harvie and Stephanie Meyers edited The Atheist's Guide to Christmas, which I found intermittently delightful. Not all the essays are wonderful, but some are. And almost all are at least interesting.

Roger Lewis' Seasonal Suicide Notes is not. I bought it because he was my tutor at Oxford and I'd struck up a minor correspondence with him when I heard (on Stephen Fry's Twitter feed, of all places) that he was ill. I'd read some of his newspaper columns and found him fairly amusing. There's some buzz around his supposedly hilarious Christmas emails, and this book captures them.

They're not amusing. They're crabby and self-aggrandizing and generally boorish. Also boring, which is the unforgivable bit. Ugh. This one goes to the Swap Shop.

Susan Mallery's Already Home is an amusing romance about a chef who strikes out on her own to open a cooking store. It made me hungry. The romance is sweet if a bit silly. I'll re-read it before deciding whether to keep it.

I apparently read and enjoyed Lydia Netzer's Shine Shine Shine, but I can't remember it. Dunno if that says more about me or about the book... probably me, as I've crammed a whole lot of other books between then and now. In any case, now I have something to read (and presumably enjoy) again. Score!

I have mixed feelings about Alice Ozma's The Reading Promise. I thought it was a lovely idea, until I realized that this memoir about a woman whose father read to her every night for 8 years was a book about a woman whose primary interaction with her father was his reading to her. Reading is lovely! I love reading! y'think? But her father was (and apparently is) so emotionally detached (stunted? abnormal?) that he paid almost no attention to his daughter other than through reading. So that's very sad and disturbing. Which I'm sure it's meant to be.

I'm also not crazy about all their book choices. Nor about his censorship.

But it is a lovely idea and it's reasonably well written.

I was crushed by the ending of Dana Stabenow's latest Kate Shugack, Bad Blood. I thoroughly enjoyed it up until the last page. Now I can only hope that someone else reads it so we can talk about it... and that Stabenow writes the next one soon.


* I don't know who suggested it, as the comment didn't have a name. Lori, perhaps? CURSE YOU for suggesting it. Also, THANK YOU.

Tags: books

07:50 pm: Update

Everything is just fine. I'm over the stomach flu just in time for the end of Teddy's vacation, which ended up being all about DVDs and books and not at all about museums, but Teddy didn't object. At all. To my minor dismay, he's now completely hooked on Friends. Go figure.

My job search continues apace, with a number of promising leads. Ironically, I'm now most concerned about finding something too soon... I don't want to pass up a good opportunity in the hopes of something better that may not come, but I also don't want to jump on anything because of worry that nothing else will arise, y'know?

I do worry, though it's no longer a constant state. I don't think that'll go away until I'm well established in a new position... And maybe never.

I've been crappy about keeping up with posting here and about staying in touch. I'll keep working on it.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

Tags: via ljapp

12:16 pm: A conversation

"Sweetie, if you want to watch TV, what does Mommy need?"

He says thank you, gives me a hug and a kiss.

"That's wonderful and I always love it. But I need the remotes."

"Oh. I thought you means something you needed emotionally."

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Tags: via ljapp

07:40 am: what's happened to me?
It took me 3 hours to read a book last night.

3 hours.
385 pages.

What have I become?

I mean, seriously? 3 hours? For a romance novel?

It's official: I'm old.

On the positive side, I'll be book blogging soon. I don't know if that's positive for you, but for me, it means I get to put away the stack of books that's teetering on my desk.

Tags: books

07:23 am: what have I wrought?
First day back at school after a long weekend. We're all awake by 7:00 (unusual in and of itself). Teddy calls for "family time!" (in which we all pile on one bed together and snuggle). Peter grumbles (he doesn't like early-morning group snuggles).

Teddy says "suck it up, mister."

oh dear oh dear.

08:28 am: tiny updates
Got through the holidays OK, though I was sick (hack, sniffle). Time with family was nice. Downtime was good. I'd planned more active downtime, but settled for movies and books at home. Book update coming soon. Maybe capsule movie reviews too? (Lemme know if you're interested; we cancelled cable and signed up for streaming Netflix, plus there are the DVDs we got for Christmas... and I've actually gone to a couple of movies recently too. Discovered $5 movie nights. w00t!)

Teddy did well with the birthday and holidays. Has just one Lego set left to make. Our house is over-run with small plastic pieces, but at least most of them are off the floor. So they still collect dust (though, as active playthings, less than I'd've thought) but I don't step on them. Win!

Got hooked on Firefly, watched the whole season plus the movie in 3 days. Now I've got me a Nathan Fillion hankering. Also got hooked on Sherlock (BBC), watched the two series in 2 days and have a hankering for Benedict Cumberbatch. And to a lesser extent, Martin Freeman.

Work is in flux at the moment. We have all kinds of plans, some of which are pending corporate approval, some of which are delayed because an internal transfer's delayed a few weeks. I learned and am making an important adjustment: our company is not the same company it was when I joined. No surprise there, really, as nothing stays the same, right? But the company culture has always had a specific... tone, I guess, which has been subsumed by the parent company. So I (and others) are adapting by going smaller, preserving the valuable parts of that culture within our department (and of course trying to slough off the negative parts). It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

I'm going to look at my archives and blogroll for a year-end wrap-up template. I find taking stock regularly to be useful.

01:20 pm: A conversation
I was in the bathroom. Teddy was talking to me from outside the closed door.*

"Wanna see the glow-in-the-dark spider eyes?"

I didn't, much, but took a few beats to respond. Before I opened my mouth, however:
"I'll take that as a yes."

He shows me the spider.

"How do you know they glow in the dark?"

He sighs. "Two reasons. A, it shows it on the box. B, let me just show you."

And so he did.

As much as I'm really (really!) looking forward to having just a few moments of private time in a private place (soooomeday), I do totally dig his logical reasoning. I'm somewhat taken aback to realize he actually does listen when I talk, as "I'll take that as a yes" is my standard response to his non-answers.


* Closed! Progress!