Work Update

I've been enjoying my first two months of work. I'm still settling in and trying to get up to speed but things seem more doable as I learn more and see the gap in info isn't too big. The big struggle is inheriting a department that had had a big turnover before I started and is on a shoe string staff. I've been interviewing but it's been slo going and the market is rough but making progress. We have a new person starting on Monday who is an untraditional hire, so a bit of an experiment, but I find you have to get creative with these things. 

As I've been getting up to speed, I've been relying on my second in charge.  He's the only one who knows the projects. The other staff are brand new. He had been interim director until I was hired.it was a new dynamic for me, as he had also applied for the position but is just to young and inexperienced.  So some delicate maneuvering but I did get the sense he was burnt out and dissatisfied with his growth. And it was just a matter of time. We worked well together, but last week he gave his notice. I was hoping I'd have had a bit more time, to build up the staff and get up to speed. Not the best timing but not a complete surprise. 

The surprise, again not to wax on and on about my time off, is how I'm handling the situation. My earlier me would be in crisis mode since it's going to be very bumpy for awhile.  There is a huge backlog of projects and our clients have been frustrated with the turn over in our group and the lack of continuity in knowing projects. And before there was always overlap on projects of some sort. Now there will be a big gap.  I've inherited projects every job I went too.  This is my fourth time and it's by far the hardest because there is very little framework for capturing and recording the project history. It's the worst I've seen. Which is what I love creating - systems and processes and tools. But, in the meantime, it's going to be rough. 

Normally, in my head, I'd be oscillating from everything is going to be fine, to, OMG, OMG it's going to be bad. I still have moments of the OMG thought, but I'm seeing it more as just im having the thought things are going to be bad, but seeing it from a distance and letting it flow on by. It's nice being the continual state of it will be all good and I've got this. 

Also, my old instinct would be too just throw myself into the problem and work longer hours and focus all my energy on solving the problem by dropping other stuff. And I'm surprised to see that I'm figuring out what to add to my schedule to help me through this time. I will be working more but not at the expense of everything else and I've been managing my schedule. Examples, 

1. Commute. I started with thinking, maybe I should drive in instead of public transportation. It would save me an extra 60-90 minutes and be less stressful when it comes to the weather. But the cost. I could afford it, but it would effect my long term financial plans. Instead, I negotiated, with myself, that if I drive in, this would free up time I don't feel I have, to make it to the gym in the morning. So I'm looking into seeing if I can get bumped up the waiting list for parking. 

2. Gym.  I realized that I'm going to need more energy and support for my mental health during this trying period. And since I discovered that a good cardio work out does wonders of stabilizing my mental, I want to make sure I work it into my schedule moving forward. It will be tricky but pairing it with the cost of parking I can use my guilt of paying for driving in to keep me on track with going to the gym in the mornings. 

3. Friend Network. I had caught up last week, with an old coworker who works in a similar role at MIT. We hadn't seen each other for a few years and after comparing notes on work stuff, caught up on life stuff and have tons of shared interests. She had suggested we get together for something, and the initial reaction that flashed through my head was, I won't have time for this, I need to say no. And quickly another voice put that in check. I had been tired and low energy from work and just spending an hour with her and talking about the topics we did, totally energized and recharged me. So, I then went from thinking of saying no, to scheduling recurring get together with her, to thinking on my way home, who else should I schedule to see that would also help recharge me. I have another work friend I see monthly that is similar and was trying to think if there was anyone else. 

4. CBT Coach. I had seen this really good therapist during the end of my last job. She went on maternity break and then I was on my hiatus. I asked to be put on her waiting list since I just found her sessions so useful. It was less like therapy and more like having a life or career coach. The sessions are a half hour. I pick one issue, share the problems.  She listens and then reframed and provides me with tools on how to move forward. And it worked time and time again. It was like getting a monthly tune-up on my thinking. Friday I got call that there were some openings. I haven't been able to connect with the doctors office yet, but initially I thought, it's going to be an appointment in the middle of the day, I can't take it, to thinking, it doesn't have to be first thing in the morning, I can consider some other times and try to make it work. 

5. Orienteering.  Last spring I had reached out to help run an event in my local park. It's been on hold for awhile and then last week I was contacted by the meet director to coordinate. I'm shadowing him to see what goes into the event so in the future I can run the event. At first, I thought I should drop this commitment, I won't have time, and then I figured no, I love orienteering and it will be a healthy break from work stuff and not beyond my work load of things I can do. It's not that big a time commitment. So I'm continuing with organizing the meet and made a conscious decision to try to go to as many meets on the weekends when the season starts up again in a month. 

6. Weekends. I was planning on heading up to NH to visit Dad and Barbro and get some blueberry picking in. And the news hit and I thought, no I should stay home and get stuff taken care of.  But again, I was like, work life balance. I won't go up every weekend, but it's nice going up to visit. We're always outside hiking or canoeing so I get some good vitamin D and fresh air. And it's a quiet schedule. It's important I use my weekends to take a breather and get out of my head thinking about work stuff. 

All of these things just fell in my lap last week and I realized I was formulating my support system for getting me through this next stage of work. I decided, instead of passively letting this happen, to think about what else I should put together to be proactive and have a plan of attack. I was doing that in detail on the work logistics and transferring knowledge and projects but what about in my personal life. Here's my initial list I came up with of some more stuff I should spend time on:

1. Cooking. The healthier I eat and the less I have to think about meals, the better. I need to spend some time developing a schedule of meals and snacks to make each week. Half the challenge is meal planning.  

2. Outfits. Same thing.  The better I feel and less I have to think about what to wear, the better.  This I'm almost there. I'm loving my closet of summer clothes and it's a fraction of what I had years ago. I've come a long way. Big gap right now are flat work shoes. So just need to find a second pair and all good. 

3. Cat time. The more I make sure I cuddle and play with my W&W every day the better all around. 

4. Knitting Time. I don't have anything on the needles. Just stuck on fixing old projects which isn't my favorite. So I'm picking out a new project to work on. The act of knitting is very calming for me and gives me a nice pick me up of accomplishment. 

5. Cleaning and Clutter. A peaceful house that is my sanctuary is what I need. Again, I'm almost there. I've learned to keep clutter (incomplete projects and deferred decisions) confined to my loft.  I'm slowly whittling away at the pile. And I've gotten into the habit of a Saturday morning quick clean and a week day tidy up. Just need to keep on schedule, especially in the summer with all the fur balls that materialize daily. 

6. Gardening. This one is interesting. I think I figured out I find it calming and rejuvenating to garden in my back yard and stressful and tiring to garden in my front yard. The front yard needs a lot of help and is on public display. It's overwhelming. I'm having a landscape architect that was recommended to come out and see about modifying the design to make the front garden lower maintenance. But that won't happen until the fall or next spring (well, first we have to get the price tag). So for right now, I'm working on letting the front yard not effect me - it's just one summer and spend time in the back yard guilt free. Although I just realized I might need to re think this one. I just got a notice that mosquitoes in town tested positive for west Nile disease and they recommend not going out at dawn or dusk which is my ideal time to garden - time wise and temperature wise. 

Well, that's all for now.  I'm off to grab a quick bite before going to my Saturday morning Tai Chi class. It's been awhile, and I don't want to miss it. 

Reframing Lunches

As I keep writing, I love that I developed new habits and rebalanced my life. But the true test is when things get busy, do I keep with the new regime, or slip back into old ways. I was listening to a freakonomics episode that talked about habits and one comment really stuck with me.  It was about giving yourself time to change. The point being that you've had years doing things one way so changing over night just isn't balanced when you think about the science and the rewiring that needs to happen. It's all about managing expectations. 

This week I've been faced with an old habit popping up - wanting to skip making my lunch in the morning and just buy my lunch. So far I've been good.  Partly because I want to be in more control of what ingredients I consume, which on the flip side can make making my lunch harder each morning. Gone are the days of wiping up a sandwich to pack. And if I haven't batched cook, I find I need to quickly cook up some meat and veggies or complex grain in the morning and with the heat and humidity...well, you can see why I want to just buy my lunch. 

But one thing that popped into my head yesterday that helps reframe things for me is the cost. Not just a vague, lunches can get expensive kind of thing.  The usual, general arguments of its healthier to make my lunch, it saves time at lunchtime because you aren't running out to get something, and it's just expensive.  All of those I could talk my way out of with my inner voices. 

What it was, was pulling on my budgeting I've done. I had started tracking my spending during my time off so that I had a better understanding of how much I spent on what. Mainly I did this exercise because I really needed to know as I was getting to the end of my time off. It helped me tighten the belt in areas that I saw fluctuate month to month and reflect on why which then fed back to real time purchasing decisions. The point being, I know how much I spend on groceries/food per month, which includes meals out. And since I wasn't really eating out, I was pretty economical, even while sticking with healthy foods (meat and veggies are 90% of my grocery bills). 

My aha moment was when I connected that buying my lunch for one day was about the same cost I had for all my food that day. Rounding up, I spend $300 per month which is $10 per day and lunches in my area are, rounding up, $10. That really put things in perspective for me.  Why blow all my money for the day on one meal?  Now, can I afford to spend more, of course.  Would that increase the quality of my eating - not really.  Does it help my core values and principles - nope. Am I considering my future self when making decisions in the now - nope. Basically, I was succumbing to the wants in the now (not having to deal with making my lunch), and pushing the consequences onto future me. 

So, for now, I'm plugging along and not slipping into making things "easier" for the short term but at the expense of my long term. I'm following the advise of an old boss when I asked him his tips for financial planning. He said, "as you make more and more money, don't adjust your spending to correlate."  His point was you will be tempted to spend more the more disposable income you have, but it's all wants, and not needs and it's better to put it away and save. 

New Lifestyle

It wasn't until I threw the my job into the mix that I realized how much I had shifted my lifestyle - in a good way. And it's strange, on the three main categories I worked on, I graded myself, before going down this path of self growth:

1. Finances. Good - I was good at saving and not spending beyond my means. I always put the max. away for retirement and wasn't too decedent in my spending. 

2. Food. Good - I always cooked my meals and brought my lunch. I didn't eat out too often and I mostly bought unprocessed food and ate a lot of veggies. 

3. Exercise. Not great - ok, I knew I could be doing more even though I'd go hiking and canoeing and other fun things on some weekends. I knew I wasn't in the best shape cardio-wise. 

But all in all I thought I was on top of my money and food. How far I have come!  For the food, I didn't really know what processed food means and now, although I still eat everything - I didn't eliminate any food from my diet, I crave healthy meals and snacks. Sometimes it's hard when I go to an event - like a breakfast work thing and they only had not so great pastries and bagels. I love my pastries and bagels, but now if I'm going to eat them, I want to eat good quality ones. 

And on the money side, by figuring out so much through decluttering, I'm much more focused on the bigger picture. I've been sticking with my previous routine - I get $300 out of the bank at the beginning of the month and that's my spending money for everything other than the house bills (mortgage and utilities and Internet/phone). Most of my spending goes towards groceries, gas and cats with a few miscellaneous things each month. 

The other weekend I swung by my local, really nice, consignment store where I had some credit. After working for almost two months, I was finally going through and decluttering my work clothes (I had held off before because I didn't know what environment I'd be in). And I've been slowly putting together my "brand" for my work look. This has really helped me as I work through what to keep and what to buy. Although I like a lot of things, if it's not on point, I pass on it.  It feels so good getting dressed every morning, having outfits I feel great in. 

One challenge I've had is that my body weight has shifted on me again. Interestingly, it's been going down. Lower than what I was when I left the work force. I think it's because I have a good foundation of diet and constant movement (I clock over 10,000 steps each day). And my theory is, because I had a good metabolism to begin with, although aging and the associated hormones, made it harder for my metabolism to absorb whatever my lifestyle is, as long as I recenter my food and exercise, because of the good metabolism, I see the rewards. This isn't the case for everyone, depending on what metabolism they inherited. I do find the intense cardio probably helps with the weight but more so the mental health. 

All this to share my latest bonuses in life. Last weekend, I was at my local clothing used shop, trying to find a few pieces to fill my holes in my wardrobe. Especially pants that fit. I found a ton of great pieces but really deliberated about what to buy.  I even ran home and changed into some clothes/shoes I wanted to see if the pieces would go well with and came back to make a final selection. As the clerk was ringing me up and I was paying, she noticed she had forgotten to include some pink espidrilles and ended up just adding them to the bag for free!  I was so happy to find the shoes in the first place as pink espidrilles have been on my list since last summer but I didn't want to spend more than $20 and then to not only find them but get them for free. I saw it as a reward for being really good and asking myself my list of questions I've developed when trying something on. I look at the cut, drape, color, pattern, material, length (long torso). And I ask myself what I'll wear this with and plan several outfits before I consider buying it. I also ask myself where I picture myself wearing this and if it's a "what if" like I'm out on a friend's sail boat or something equally uncommon, I double check I see myself wearing it next week and decide if the piece is more for me or my fantasy self. 

I did allow myself to buy one experiment piece. A skirt in a style I'd don't usually wear but want to try with tights in the fall. I had another piece I was on the fence with and realized it was an experiment pice too because it was a color I wasn't sure of. But I said, no, only one experiment piece per month or quarter.  Anyways, I felt good about my purchases and have worn everything except the skirt so far and am loving it. Oh wait, there was a dress I got too but haven't worn yet because of my shoe situation. I dropped my vacuum on my big toe while I was cleaning it and it's slowly healing but that means no heals or wedges which knocks out most of my shoes for work. So I'm planning on wearing the dress soon, and still think it was a good purchase. Actually, the sales clerk mentioned she used to work at Nordstroms and thought she remembered the dress selling for almost $2,000 (it's Armani). I got it for a steel it turns out. And it fits divinely. 

Well today, I feel like I was rewarded again for following my good purchasing habits. I was out running errands. Trying to find fancy flat sandels I could wear for work while my toe gets better (it doesn't like being confined in shoes). As I was running errands, I realized I needed a pair of new jeans too since the ones I had on felt like they were falling down - a bit too big, and I had just the one pair. At Nordstrom rack, I went through so many sandels and found some that could work, but they weren't my brand so I passed. And I also found a few other things, like face lotion on sale, but I still have several I need to finish first even though I need something more moisturizing for my skin, and a top I liked but didn't love the color - again, not my brand. Old me would have had about four items in the check out line. New me, had two, and as I waited, I realized I should wait on the moisturizer and do my homework and formulate a plan. I didn't need to buy it now. It also helped that I had limited cash on hand and had to still run to the grocery store. I went to the clerk and she rang up my one item - my pair of jeans I found after going though dozens and finding some that were good but not great. I persevered until I found something I felt great in and wasn't too expensive. Some of the jeans were $70+ on sale which I would have considered earlier in my life, but with my new financial goals, I kept digging until I found a pair that worked and were only $30.  She rang up these jeans and said "one cent". I was a bit confused and after she repeated herself a few times, I dug out a penny from my pocket and handed it over figuring it was a donation thing or something. Nope, the jeans rang up for $0.01. I don't get it since that's not the price listed, but I didn't want to ask too many questions and the sku numbers matched. The clerk didn't bat an eye so I guess that it's not unusual. And I figured I was being rewarded for staying centered with my purchasing habits. It felt good and I'm still a bit shocked. Which makes the jeans feel even better when I wear them although it's just nice to have pants that fit well.