Watching what you say

The blog world is such an interesting place. A blog sort of feels like a diary. It's easy to forget that the world is reading. It's especially easy to forget that people might be reading that you have NO IDEA are reading. It feels like you're spilling out thoughts to strangers in the blog world, but then you hear from someone who knows you in real life that they were upset about something you said. WHAT? How did you find my blog?

I know that most bloggers struggle with anon/known and how much to say if they blog as themselves. After finding out I'd upset many people, I've done some editing. Here is a public apology to my old co-workers. I don't feel badly about expressing my sadness that they weren't there when I needed them. We were very close, and I felt completely abandonded when I needed some support. I DO feel badly that I said some things on my blog out of anger that I didn't entirely mean. Thankfully at least one co-worker had the balls to call me out, allowed me to apologize, and we moved on.

The parts I haven't edited include the behavior of my nephew and some of the struggles with my in-laws. I stated nothing that wasn't the truth, and I'm okay with people knowing I think my nephew is a spoiled brat. I'm not the only one that thinks that, and I feel badly that this poor child is going to have to enter the world thinking that it revolves around him. Telling your child "no" actually helps them. Really, it does.

We'll see how often I can blog, but I certainly have lots to catch up on. Thanks for hanging in there while I took a break and cleaned house a little bit!

A perfect start to 2010

I can't believe I left that depressing post at the top for so long! The holidays passed pleasantly uneventful. Pre-holidays I had agreed to go to one of the 3 holidays with my in-laws (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years). My husband picked Thanksgiving, since my parents were going and my SIL's in-laws were also going. My nephew (SIL's son) was a crazy, spoiled brat as usual, and my MIL was as polite as she knows how to be, so it was fine. Of course, come Christmas I was going to look like a big a-hole if I didn't go. B didn't pressure me to go, just asked nicely if I would come.

2010 we were determined to start in a better way. 2009 was a bumpy year for us with 3 new jobs between us, a new house, in-law (and parent) issues, sickness, surgery, and general stress. For 2010 we decided to head out for a much-needed 3 day getaway to our favorite bed and breakfast 4 hours away.

Let me count the ways I love Cricketwood Bed and Breakfast:
1. Fresh baked chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies (as many as you want) each night at 7, accompanied by your beverage of choice, delivered to your room.
2. An entire PACKED menu for breakfast each day, and you can pick whatever you want. Baked apple pancakes, custom omelets, chocolate chip bread pudding with rum sauce, french toast, fresh fruit, eggs any style, homemade toast with 5 jelly choices, any breakfast meat imaginable, breakfast casserole.........and on and on.
3. Breakfast is at the time of your choice.
4. Hot tub outside, under the stars (it's in the country).
5. Jetted bathtub in the room.
6. Gas fireplace in the living room, perfect for snuggling up to.
7. Snacks available 24/7 (beer, wine, water, soda, popcorn, biscotti, chips and salsa, nuts, granola bars, mini candy bars, coffee, ice cream).
8. Beverage of your choice delivered to your room before breakfast (coffee, tea, chai, water, milk, oj, etc).
9. Massage tables and video in your room (yet we've never tried it!).
10. Huge TV with satellite cable.
11. An entire closet of DVDs - current ones!
12. A disc golf course on the property.
13. The most lovely couple that runs it.
14. HUGE rooms! Our favorite room has a king-sized bed, two double beds, a full recliner sofa, a dining table, and still has tons of room.
15. The owners put together a very through binder, with maps and reviews, of the best local restaurants.

I could go on forever. We LOVE it there! At $130 a night, it's pretty reasonable considering all that you get. This trip we decided to give snowshoeing a try at Mt. Bachelor (about 25 miles from the B&B). We ended up getting there 15 minutes before the free forestry snowshoeing tour (score!) so we got to try it for free and learn facts about the mountain. The weather was beautiful! Sun trying to peak through, not too cold, but 5 new inches of snow in the last day. We had such a great time, and it was a fantastic way to start 2010!

Joining the rest of the world

My new job is at a large organization, so we have an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP). For those of you unfamiliar with EAP, they allow for free counseling, drug and alcohol help, financial counseling, etc. After some brief marital strife, we decided we might as well take advantage of the free support.

Our meeting with the counselor was a week and a half ago. I'd never been to counseling, so I wasn't sure what to expect. My verdict? Meh. The guy didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. "You're a partnership now, so you have to consult each other and work together." Duh. Okay, so it was helpful that he told us everything we do that is important needs TWO votes. If you don't get 2 votes, you can't do it.

(rest of this post edited away)

Ouch!

I've been trying to post more regularly, but time flies so quickly! I also have a new job that doesn't give me as much "dick around on the internet" time, plus I have an hour commute each way, so I'm tired when I get home!

This week I had a minor surgery on my foot for an ingrown toenail. It seemed like no big deal and it was done in an office visit. HOLY HELL they didn't tell me how much it would hurt after. I couldn't sleep because of the pain, and they hadn't given me any pain meds. Thank goodness for Vicodin left over from Bryan's gallbladder surgery in August. I couldn't get a shoe on my foot, so I went to work with one shoe and Bryan's indoor/outdoor slipper on the other foot.

Today is a bit better and I have 2 shoes on (thankfully running shoes are fine at work on a Friday). I wish they would have warned me that I couldn't exercise for 2 weeks, wouldn't be able to walk well for several days, and would be dealing with pain for up to a month! Yikes! I choose to look at the bright side though..."foot pain" may just get me out of Christmas was the in-laws! In that case, hooray for surgeries!

I can't believe Christmas is next week already. I haven't felt very Christmasy this year, although I'm not completely sure why. This has been a period of a lot of transition, and I think it has left me worn out and too tired to celebrate. I'm looking foward to a calmer 2010 and some major traveling.

Saying goodbye to a rough week

This week was a really rough one for myriad of reasons. I think it's best to leave marital issues alone right now, especially since we're both committed to working on them right now. Suffice to say being married is really hard sometimes.

I also had a rude awakening about how quickly you can no longer be part of a group. I worked at my last job for 6 years, so I was very close with my co-workers. I've only been gone a month, and I already can't relate to them at all. We had our office Christmas Party on Friday, and I felt like such an outsider.

So in happier news, one of my new bosses came to me on Friday and told me he just wanted to let me know how happy he is to have me working with him and he thinks I'm doing a fantastic job. Not only did he tell me this, but he also told the head of the department. The woman who sits behind me overheard him, and chimed in that she thinks I'm super smart and it feels like I've been a part of the team for years. It feels really good to know I made the right move!

Now it's time to bake a bunch of cookies as part of the all-day party that is the Christmas Party at my new job. We have an oral and a silent auction (for charity), a talent show, a white elephant gift exchange, and breakfast/lunch provided by my employer. May THIS Christmas Party be the office fun I was expecting :)

Christmas parties revisited

I worked for my former job for 6 years, and the annual Christmas party was something we looked forward to every year.

Year 1 (2003) was at a nice local restaurant (that no longer exists) in a room just for us, with a silly $10 gift grab. I still have the plant today that I got in the gift grab!

Year 2 (2004) My boss had had a house built this year, so we had the party at his house. He hired a caterer and set up fancy tables. The twist this year was that we each had to bring some form of entertainment for the group, and it would be judged! The presentations were widely varied (I matched each co-worker with a breed of dog and explained why, one boss sang like Kermit the Frog, one co-worker made a work-related board game, one person wrote poetry). While fun, it was really stressful and I think made us all dislike this party the most. Competition doesn't fit well with a nice formal party!

Year 3 (2005) was the year of lavish gluttony. Our company was doing well, and the owners wanted to take us out to celebrate wealthy style! They had reserved the private wine cellar room at arguably one of the most expensive restaurants (for sure the most expensive steak restaurant) in town. Not only could we get whatever we wanted off of the menu (steaks started at $60 for JUST THE STEAK!), but we had appetizers galore, wine, and dessert. I still feel guilty to this day about how much that meal must have cost, but it was a one-in-a-lifetime experience.



Year 4 (2006) was my favorite party to date. It was our first year in the office space we owned (a cool old house), and my boss's hired the chef/somalier at a local winery to come cook us a 6 course meal with a wine pairing (from their vineyard of course) for each course. The wine was presented with an explanation about it and how it paired with the food being served. They rented tables and set up the office beautifully, and the food was amazing. The entire meal start to finish was 5 hours! We then each got to take home a bottle of wine from the vineyard.

Year 5 (2007) was a multi-pronged party. We started out a Sur La Table and had a cooking class (and we got to eat the food). I remember it being haricots verts and a meaty soup, but I know there was other stuff and it was very good and a unique twist on the usual dinner. We then walked a couple of blocks for a performance of A Christmas Carol. After the play, we had a private room at a local bar/restaurant for dessert and drinks. Although this was a fun year, I missed the ability to socialize more. I did learn about the greatness of meyer lemons though :)

Year 6 (2008) was at the View Point Inn, about a 45 minute drive for most of us. Part of Twilight was filmed here the same year as the party. It is a beautiful building with a gorgeous view. Unfortunately the party was in the evening, so we didn't get to enjoy it. We did enjoy the cocktail hour before dinner with the room just for us. Post-dinner we did a gift steal. The boss had given us each $20 for a gift. The best part of this steal was the rapid-fire dice tossing for the last minute. You got to steal the gift of your choice if you got doubles. We ended up with a gift certificate to a local restaurant, which was great.



Year 7 (2009) Unless I work for them doing some consulting in 2010 (fairly unlikely), this will be my last party. It's a tight year all around, so the plan is to start at the office with drinks and games, and have dinner at a local upscale grocery store that does dinners. We'll be doing the same gift steal as last year, although the twist is that the winner of the games gets final pick of the gift they want.

I'm going to miss these parties! I have so many great memories of the fun we've had and how appreciated we feel/felt as employees.

Grief

I feel very fortunate to have lost very few people in my life. Somehow though, the number being so small (3 main people come to mind) makes them feel infinitely more painful.

My grandfather died when I was 14 from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). Although he was a tough, strict, often unkind father to my mom and her 3 brothers, he was a fabulous grandfather. I was the first grandchild and we had a very close relationship. We used to spend hours, he and my grandma and me, doing the daily jumble and wordsearch from the "funnies" section of the paper. As my grandmother's eyesight began to fail from the ravages of macular degeneration, he and I would sit at the kitchen table and race to see who could get all of the words found from the wordsearch first. I vividly remember the first time ever that I beat him.

I thought I was finally smart enough to beat him.

Little did I know, but the horrible yet-to-be-diagnosed-disease that would take him from me made it very hard to him to make the fine motor movements to circle the letters in the puzzle.

In addition to word games, my grandpa and I spent hours gardening. He was a fastidious (some would say anal retentive) gardener. His garden consisted of 3 main flowers - fuchsias, which hung from baskets around the carport each summer, roses, which lined the "boulevard" in front of his house, and dahlias, which were the crux of the main small garden. If you know anything about gardening, you know that roses and fuchsias are messy flowers. When they start to die, they drop their flowers. Grandpa thought that it was a sin to have a stray petal in your garden, or a dead fuchsia on the ground. God forbid the dahlias grew too tall and started to bend before you got around to staking them.

My grandpa was an A+ gardener though, and never was an errant petal in the dirt for more than a day. The dahlias were staked from day one, and once weekly they were re-tied. He would walk around every evening and pluck the dying fuchsia flowers before they had a chance to fall. I loved gardening with him.

This summer, two major things happened that made me miss my grandpa. My husband and I bought our first house together, and my grandma moved out of the house she and my grandpa had owned since 1960. I wanted nothing more than to have grandpa help me plant some roses in my yard. I dreamed of the previously-loathed one day per year at Fred Meyer where scads of people line up because they pot your fuchsias for you. He wasn't there to help me. Not only that, but the dahlias that I had faithfully tied up at his house every year since his death were ripped out by the new owner of the house to make room for more grass. I cried over the loss of some stupid flower bulbs. Of course, it wasn't the bulbs I missed. I missed the last connection I had to my grandpa. I knew each time I trimmed the roses and tied up the dahlias that he was proud of me, happy that the neighbors weren't walking past his garden and thinking "Jim never would have let the petals fall off the roses like that."

I miss him. I miss him more as an adult than I did as a self-centered teenager. I have a garden, both in my yard and in my heart, that needs some tending.