Friday Roundup 5/24

Meant to post this last Friday 5/24:


For some reason I think of this blog as a way to document the events of my life - all of them. And in reality it’s a spotty glimpse. I have so much I’ve wanted to post from my pseudo-parenting (thanks to the generosity of my besty who’s generous in sharing her children with me) - taking my godchildren for a weekend up to Vermont to see the Maple Sugar Houses without any parents (mine or theirs), to trekking out to Ferry Beach again up in Maine for a weekend away, to all the house projects I’ve started - all at once and much much more I’ve already forgotten.


So I’m declaring a clean slate and if I post the old stuff - great, but here’s the latest.

- At work last night there were some last minute change in plans and instead of flying to Atlanta in a week, I’m flying to London. I was bummed not to go to the Atlanta thing - great learning experience. And I’m not sure how prepared I’ll be for the project meeting in London, but, hey, London vs. Atlanta, they’re miles apart in my book (literally and figuratively).

- Another plus - the London meeting was near a weekend, so instead of flying over and back for a day meeting, I’ll be there for a nice mini-vacation. I’ll have three days in London.

- I feel like I have a running list of things I wanted to do/visit when I was next in London and now I can’t remember a single thing. Plus, on top of that, I’m flat out right up until I leave so will barely have any time to plan.

- Booking the hotels last night it’s a funny spectrum. First three nights I’m at a decently priced hotel on Hyde Park. I decided my days of Youth Hostels are behind me. The last three nights I’m at a 5 star grand hotel that might make it to my top five list of places I’ve stayed. I’m giddy in anticipation.

- And the final splurge is I get to fly business class both ways. I can’t wait - it’s such a more civilized way to travel. It’s still a red eye going over there, but when you can actually sleep on the flight I don’t mind. Plus it’s direct - a must for me these days.

- On the work side I was hitting a wall for awhile - it was just getting to be too much. I’ve got a renewed excitement this last week. Not sure what from, but have been trying to work on the mind shift. I realized that I always wanted to start my own business but not deal with the risk and starting from scratch. And in a way, taking this department and really growing it and changing it, it’s like I have my own business within the company with the added benefit of automatic business and great resources to draw upon. So put in that light, it’s not so exhausting when I’m not able to find qualified staff as quickly as I’d like and ma faced with a mountain of demands. It’s nothing compared to if I was on my own.

- On the home front, I’ve been mulling and perusing and planning potential upgrades for my place. Simple stuff right now. I forget how expensive even the simple stuff can be. And for some reason I decided to start a few projects at the same time. I’m happy to report I finished one - I built a shoe rack that covers the floor of my entire closet - custom fitted. Pretty good since I don’t have a saw to make adjustments. Only one piece of wood was the wrong size. But just need to cut an inch and I’m good. It’s not critical so I was able to put all the shoes back in. And as I write this I just realized I should bring the wood to my friends I’m visiting tonight - they have a saw in the woodshop. It will be a two second job. Much faster than trying to sand it down with my new sander.

- I bought a sander. I’ve also started to pull up the wall to wall carpet from my loft. My plan is to patch up the floors and paint the plywood white. I’ve done a lot of research of what products to use for the primer, paint and sealer. Thought I was good, but then faced two challenges. It’s a lot more work than I thought it would be (surprise surprise) and I’m having trouble finding some of the products for paint that I want to use. Luckily, since it looks like I have several weeks worth of work working on prepping the surface it’s no problem. I’m slowing rolling up strips of carpet and putting them out with the trash each week. I don’t want to dump it out there all at once in the fear they won’t take any of it. There must be a cap of what they’ll take.

- One of the mid-century decorating blogs I was following posted that the couple who writes it and is in the Boston area are moving to California and selling a bunch of stuff. I was able to reserve one of their furniture pieces - the media stand and am scheduled to see/buy it tonight after work. They sent me the measurements and this morning I realized there’s no way I can get it into the car. Again I’m indebted to my friends who are letting me borrow their truck. So tonight I’ll be running around with that but can’t wait to have the new piece of furniture. This does mean though, that something has to get swapped out. I think I might have too much furniture in my place and this will definitely tip it over. Actually, I think I currently have the right balance of furniture… as long as it’s just me. If there are more people it starts to feel a little crowded.

- Speaking of which, tomorrow, my brother is coming to stay with me for a few weeks before he moves into his new place in Cambridge. I’m so excited he’ll be close for the next couple of years.

- My dad and step-mum are also popping down with Nick for the weekend. I have no food, no menus planned and no activities figured out yet. And the place needs a good cleaning. And I’ll probably not be done with the furniture pick-up until about 10pm. I’m a little stressed - but looking forward to the visit anyways. Thank goodness it’s family.

- And to end with, I keep forgetting that Monday is a holiday. It’s such a nice surprise. I can’t wait. Now, if only the dreary weather would cooperate.

Parents

As I've grown older I notice I'm turning into my parents. Of course we share in similar interests but I'm talking about the mannerisms and behaviors. I find that most of the time I am becoming like my mom: the way I cross my legs or quote certain things. But the other day after I left a friends Kentucky Derby party and was heading up to Vermont, I did a very dad thing. I took a picture of my odometer turning 40,000 miles (it's a little blurry in the picture).

If you look back through our picture albums you'll see spattered in amongst the pictures of us at Halloween and on road trips a picture here and there of some cars milestone mileage. I remember making fun of this habit and still think I do to this day until I realized I really wanted to take a picture of my car turning the big 4-0. And that's when it hit me - I've turned into dad.

So no more making fun of this behavior since I've now joined the club. I even just treated the car to a spring special car wash. Pretty good for a 2006. You can tell I take pride in my fairly low mileage. That's about 2,500 miles a year!

Guess where I am

I was supposed to pick my brother up at the airport but instead took my friend up on her offer to join her at a Red Sox game. Believe it or not it's my first Sox game!