Category Archives: Merry Month of May

May 31st – The End


How do you know I am done with May?

Because I was *this* close to forgetting to post.

Its 10:30 – 15 and I just got home from a round of celebratory milkshakes with Eve & Renee. What were we celebrating? Renee’s new website!

Also? 15 finished his online English course!

Also? I had to deal with a nearly blown out water pump in my car today.

Also? There is drama in my back yard between neighbors due to a new fence.

Also? I ran 40 miles this month after not starting until the 6th. Got out there 14 times.

So I think I have earned a day off.

It truly has been a Merry Month of May though. I wanted to do a retrospective, but…eh…I’m tired. So many nights I thought I would barely eke out 200 words and then would see the total end up at over 800. This has been a great writing exercise and I hope to keep it up at a decent clip.

But, not every day. At least not in June.

I need to go to bed!

Thanks for taking the journey with me.

Don’t stop believing and all that feel good stuff.

May 30th – Is this the month that never ends?


Seriously – is it?

I know we typically all lament how darn FAST the days/weeks/months fly by, but either this blogging every day thing has made time slow down or else the 31 days of May are THE longest 31 days of the year!

Now, I know I cannot attribute this feeling to just the fact that I committed to writing every day because 15 fully supports my description of May as THE LONGEST MONTH EVER!

I think it is a combination of the daily writing and just the events of the month. May leads into June. June means the end of traditional school. The end of homework monitoring and tussling with him over doing said homework. It means the end of those daily check ins to the online grading system and seeing those soul piercing RED BOXES OF HELL (missed assignments). It means no more weekly check ins to each teacher’s website to plan out homework for the week. June means the end of all of that. Something that clearly both of us are more than ready to get to! May was the lead up to the AP exam and it felt like once that exam was over that it should be time to take finals. And yet? Finals are a full 3.5 weeks later! WHAT?

While it seemed like the days leading to the AP exam flew by, the days since? Crawling.

May was the software upgrade for me at work. We’ve been on the march towards this for 6 months. It seems like it snuck up on us this weekend even though we were clearly well prepared. But then when it was over and the Go Live was official on Sunday, it then seemed like it should be June. Like we should be going right into working on closing the books for May and posting journals and…what? There’s still how many more days? Gah!

And then, yes, there is the writing thing. I certainly do sort of walk through the day perhaps a little more present or focused and thinking now and then about what I will highlight in here at the end. That simple act has probably tricked my brain into feeling like time is moving more slowly. Which, of course, is a GOOD THING!

Right?

 

May 29th – Hmm..guess I blogged about that already!


Google is my friend. And my enemy. And my editor.

Tonight I had to read some more lessons for the class I’m taking which meant I needed to shut out the ambient noise. And with the return of 15 the noise level went up 10 fold. I grabbed my earphones and put on some music.

I chose Andrea Boccelli because I would not be tempted to chair dance and sing along :-) That man can not only hit some insane notes, but he hold them, and hold them, and hold them. DAYUM! Anyhow, when it was time to take a break and make dinner I switched over to Elton John and yes, I carried the Iphone with me into the kitchen and set it on the counter as I gathered supplies. Then Crocodile Rock came on.

“I remember when rock was young, me and Susie had so much fun…” and I had to dance. There was just no choice. Memory cells from the 70s kick in whenever that song comes on. As I was boogeying around the kitchen I thought I should find something on Crocodile Rock and the TV show that seared the song into my brain – Wonderama. So, I did a google search and look what was returned as the #1 result (I was signed in with my gmail account)

Heh. Guess I blogged about this topic already once!

Fine then.  New topic.

Uh…….

Oh yeah – I did run this morning. Up to the track, then rounded up the distance to a mile at an easy pace, then took off on what I hoped would be a fast mile, then back home. My toe is still tender though and I could feel it hurting now and then so I’ll wait to run on Thursday night again giving it another 36 hours to continue healing. No additional damage thankfully. And the “fast” mile was a 9.37 which is pretty darn good for me.

I left work a little early because I sort of hit a wall. Clearly my weekend of non stop writing and software testing took it’s toll and a headache hit me so fast it was like someone hit me. My decision to pack up and come home was a good one because I was obviously feeling much better by dinner prep-dance time! OTOH, I was clearly quite out of it as I packed up because I was missing something rather critical in my laptop bag.

The laptop.

Which was probably actually the best possible scenario since I did feel better and I did have the new lessons to read. I took notes and it sparked some ideas for more improvements I can make for PDIY. The laptop and internet would have been shiny objects preventing me from applying that kind of focus. 15 had the PC (until recently which is why I can write this) . He has to finish up his online English class by Thursday. 98% so far! We then have to huddle with the VHS and TPHS counselors to sign him up for summer session class(es). Yeah, as long as May seems to be, once that calendar flips to June a lot will happen for him as far as school ending, new VHS classes beginning and football ramping up and we have to keep on our toes.

“Crocodile rocking was something shocking, when your feet just can’t keep still!”

Rock on!

 

 

May 28th – Pattern broken but writing done!


I toyed with pushing myself up this morning to run again. Keep that even day in may pattern going. But..since I did do that track workout yesterday and my toe is not 100% I decided it was OK to skip today and switch things around. I’ll still run every other day. The goal is to run before work tomorrow.  I’m OK with that. Will be interesting to see what my total miles for May will end up being!

I lounged, had breakfast and that went head first into writing again by 10am.

In fact, here’s where I have been pretty much all day Saturday and today:

Writing space for the weekend

I am very thankful that 15 was scheduled to be with his dad for this three day weekend. It allowed me to take over what is normally his main computer space. Those papers scattered all around me were the references I’ve found that helped me increase the quality of the instructions in the guide. I feel a lot better about the product now. I’ll admit to feeling fairly apprehensive about the first version because I knew there were gaps and places where I was clearly “vamping” to keep the word count healthy. Luckily, of the 19 books sold only two had to be refunded. One due to a third party vendor failure (the customer never received the files and by the time we could respond to offer a direct link, he had started the refund process). The other is an odd one. Someone bought the book, then 30 minutes later requested a refund directly from us stating the information was “amateurish.” Oh, that hurt, but I couldn’t argue too much! However, it took us several hours to be able to initiate the refund (we do work after all) and in that time frame, what neither of us noticed is that he accessed link to the book files about a dozen more times! In fact, he literally ”trolled” the site every day for three days even after we had refunded him and then disconnected his access to the file link. Weirdo! So I almost don’t count him as a “dissatisfied” customer. Not that he needed to grab the files so many times. Once he downloaded it if he wanted to share it print it out a bazillion times he could. There’s nothing we can do about those scenarios. The lesson we learned is to go ahead and wait 24 hours before initiating a refund and watching the site stats first.

The point is – I am no longer nervous about any of that. The 6000+ words in the book are all now *quality* and so are the website pages (most of them at least…still have a couple of deeper pages to update)

Yeah, between the book, fresh pages, supporting blog posts and oh yeah, writing in this place I figure I’ve pounded out a cool 10,000 words between Saturday and today!

Phew!

I did have enough brain power afterwards to go to the grocery and do laundry – aren’t you impressed?

And now – I am going to sit my ass on that sofa and surf the 1000s of channels for some mindless crap on TV.

Toodles.

May 27th – Cranky Toes and Testing


Jacaranda Tree

Starting off with the beauty since the rest of the day was pretty lacking in it.

Ok, not entirely true, the beach I whizzed by in the car on the way to and from work was pretty darn gorgeous but there was no chance to stop and take a photo.

The jacaranda tree is the one in the yard next door to mine and I have been noticing on my runs around the area that they purple flowers are in full bloom right now. Really lovely.

The cranky toe tale: Last month I bitched about my toe nail that sort of turns in strangely and digs into the side of the neighboring toe on my right foot. This never bothered my last year while running, but for some reason it started in this year and if I don’t file that one down on a weekly basis it seems it will be an issue. Sure enough I lagged on the grooming and paid for it today.

We met up at the middle school track at 6:30am to do a 90 minute track workout. I love those because they let me work on my speed in the perfect environment. Flat, soft track with lanes to follow. Boring yes, but since we do rounds of sprints in various distances the monotony doesn’t set in.

Today it was 4 1 mile runs at 5k speed for me. Since it was 4, which is longer than I usually go, I tried to pull off my effort and keep my pace at right around 10 min miles. I only achieved that once. The other three times were between 9:25-9:50. And even then one of the things that was making me alter my pace was that I could feel my toe nail digging in :-( Right on that first mile. Ugh! I decided to just run through it, the damage was already done so other than a bloody sock I might as well push through. Well, this time the toe issue added in a bonus entire top of the toe and down one side blister. Wee! I limped home and showered and got it cleaned up and generally tended to and bandaged for the rest of the day.

Since today is an odd number date and I did want to complete the even number day pattern and run again tomorrow, I really hope the toe is OK quickly. Or maybe I just go back to the track and go slow and easy. I know I *will* use that track for speed workouts again. I really want to run a true no stopping 5k and see how fast I can go.

Anyway….back home and got the update that testing was going so well that we would probably be able to start before noon so I went in. It took longer than I thought it would and we weren’t done until after 2:30. A couple of glitches of course, but I think they got them all worked through by 5pm.

That’s about it. Been doing market research at Eve’s the rest of the night and getting frustrated at every turn. This client is gonna be sorely disappointed if we turn in another round of “sorry, but your idea sucks!”

I’m hoping for some serious sofa time tomorrow.

It’s much more likely that I will end up finishing the ebook ;-)

Motivation – sometimes I have too much!

 

May 26th – My writing writing writing motivation


But first….

The *plan* today was to lounge as usual during Uppers, then run on the 56 trail avoiding the extreme hills for a change, then shower, then start writing, then eventually head over E & R’s place for afternoon working and dinner.

That latter bit didn’t quite happen, but I did have a really really enjoyable run. I used to whine about the rolling hills on the trail, but after three straight weeks now of running the ass kicking hills around my block, those gentle hills finally do seem – gentle! I didn’t want to overdo it since we have a longer run workout tomorrow but I did run for 3.3 miles over 35 minutes and honestly felt fantastic the whole time. I enjoyed the smell of the chaparral, the bird songs and even getting to see some of the little songsters as well as many butterflies. There was a lot of activity in general on the trail including a little girl being led around on one of the local horses that board along the trail.

After the usual post running routine and a few chores, I sat down to write.

OK, so why am I embarking on this writing and web business development journey? Is it just for money?

Well, since in the last 9 months I’ve made a grand total of $400 on it – no, not entirely! Is there a damn good chance of more money than that? Absolutely!

But that’s not everything. I have never in my life been about money for the sake of money only. If so, I would have gone on to get my MBA or my CPA license.

No, I truly truly LOVE what I do at NU. And I have found out since working with Eve, that I also really really LOVE this writing thing!

OK, so technically it is copy writing that I am doing along with (so far) a how to manual.

But I am also learning. And I have always loved learning. It’s why I read so much. Mostly online of course, but still doing the best I can to read magazines and books.

Do I *want* this to replace my day job? Not at all – at least not yet! I need and love my day job for what it is: financial security, benefits, retirement accounts, an awesome work environment and something completely different from writing. It’s like I get to use both sides of my brain nearly equally through the day. Balance. Love it!

Since I do have a means to support myself already, (and so does Eve), we are not desperate to start something and screw it all up. We can take our time and go through the proper steps and make mistakes and learn from them and it isn’t life or death.

Given all those reasons why I am enjoying this, I was actually not terribly disappointed when it became clear as the day unfolded that the girls would not be able to meet tonight. I started in on a new version of the ebook at 11am and I didn’t stop until 7pm. There are 9 chapters, 8 needed to be completely re-written or replaced and I am plowed through 6 of them today. I stopped at 7 because I could feel myself getting tired of the topic which means I would start cutting corners and I don’t want to do that. No, I’ll let this sit.

Tomorrow will probably be an off day from pergola topics. Got the message that the upgrade is going along as planned so I will need to get into NU at noon. We are running at 6:30. I’ll be at NU for 3-4 hours. I really really need to buy groceries. If we meet at all it will be on the topic of other business sites. It’s a three day weekend so I’ll pick this up Monday and probably finish it and even still have time to sit in the sun.

Enough rambling – lord, I’ve writing a bazillion thousand hundred words today! Have some not unexpected beautiful lavender flowers:

 

May 25th – Losing Steam


Uh oh – I guess I should be impressed that I maintained my motivation to write in here every day for this long!

I was literally in bed before I remembered tonight.

Can you blame me? It’s Friday. It’s been an intense week. I left work after FINALLY training with my co-worker on her tasks about as late as we possibly could today. If anything at all goes wrong in this upgrade process this weekend and we cannot start testing until after 2pm Sunday, then I have to cover two systems. That’s fine – but I haven’t worked on a daily basis in the Asset Management side in several years and I really needed a refresher. I’ll be fine, but let’s all of us out there in internet land cross our fingers for a smooth process ok?

Meanwhile, after spending every night this week heading out *somewhere* I was just thrilled to get home and not have to go anywhere.

The problem is that I did have to write. Just studying the first module of the web business design class has reinforced to me how much the site AND the ebook need upgrades. To my dear friend who amusingly pointed out that having the read the word “pergola” in every other sentence was jarring – I agree! Thankfully the focus on heavily laden keyword articles for SEO placement is falling away. Now I get to write for CONTENT, simply placing the keywords in more naturally occurring places. I was fighting that all along so this will be much easier. But, it also means yet more re-writing. Argh!

So after a rather disappointing Bistro Meal package dinner of shrimp risotto, I got down to the business of improving the business. Two new website articles and the first chapter of the ebook are revamped and I’ve got the new chapter titles and approximate order of them assigned.

After all that I watched the season finale of Glee :-) Needed the total focus shift. I still love that show. It’s more of a guilty pleasure now and other’s have fallen off the trendy bandwagon (especially since some episodes did sink into silliness), but I still laugh and cry and smile and sing along with the songs. Kurt’s dad doing “Put a Ring On It”? Utterly, perfectly, touching and hysterical. Love those two characters and their interactions.

Anyhow – a moment of beauty – no pictures today. That would have meant I prepared! But, as I was typing away in the blissful silence of the house because all other occupants were gone…well THAT was a moment of beauty for sure. Then off in s distant corner of the room I heard a faint sound that is even more fabulous than silence.

It was Chip. Drinking water.

I could hear his kidneys continuing to heal with each exquisite lap of liquid.

Dream on my friends!

May 24th – The Storm Begins


You know how I said yesterday that it was the calm before the storm at work?

Yeah well, the storm rolled in today SO here’s what you get before I head out for another dinner meeting on job/career #2:

Yes, I did run. 3 miles! I could have run 4-5 but I had to get ready to go to that darn work thing. Hrmph!

Good thing I ran too because there was a baby shower at work and with cookies n cream ice cream AND warm gooey chocolate chocolate chip cookies. Ahem.

Hush up.

Unexpected Beauty entry – I am currently way too happy to see a certain cat eat wet food. He used to hate it. Now, it’s like instinct has kicked in and he loves it. Phew! Thought I would capture him chowing down and got lucky enough instead to capture a classic kitty move

Sluuuuurp!

May 23rd – Gastronomical Beauty!


A blissfully uneventful day at work. That will change tomorrow as we now have less than 48 hours to the software upgrade changeover. It felt like the calm before the storm today really.

I was able to listen to the audio version of the entire module of lessons that I had read yesterday. A great way to present the information in another format and allow for some more slivers of knowledge to soak in. They did too! I took lots of notes as they would say something that triggered a dusty brain cell to shake itself off and go “Hey! You! This applies to the pergola site!” Heh. Yes, my brain is a nag.

Hush up.

The evening though, was somewhat momentous. It was the LAST class that 26 had to take in his DUI probation program. We had finished the regular Wednesday classes back in early Feb, but then there was this ONE lingering Education Series class that had to be taken in a particular order and it finally came back around again tonight. Now, he just has to settle up a small fee, turn in some AA meeting or NA meeting signatures and meet the counselor for a exit meeting on 6/2. This has been literally YEARS in the making and I swear I almost want to throw a party like it’s graduation day when he’s done. He kinda deserves it because, while the reason there have been fits and starts and delays in this whole process were largely his own – we both also agreed that it felt like this place was NOT invested in helping him succeed. It’s run out of the state college system and it’s supposed to be a rehab type process which you THINK would mean they look better if they successfully graduate people out of it. Yet there was just a ton of incompetence and mixed up messages and unclear instructions given.

I’ve made the best of the whole thing over the last year since he got back full force into the classes right as I started dabbling in this web business. So, I could sit in the nearby Starbucks and write which was actually nice since I focused better there than I would at home. Tonight’s class was a longer one though and I have gotten so good at writing while sipping a Naked Juice and watching the crowd ebb and flow in the store that I was done with my planned article in an hour. With still another hour + to go I decided I needed dinner. Usually I just eat something light when we get home, but tonight that would have meant eating after 8pm and I didn’t want to wait that long. Also, it was jam packed and I was at center table with no outlet in reach and the sun was in my eyes and it was cold in there! IOW – whine whine whine and oh, was there a *better* place that I could be? Perhaps.

It was 6:30, I was hungry and I still have my birthday gift card. Therefore I was able to treat myself to a little slice of unplanned, unexpected gastronomical beauty:

Yes, that IS what a hamburger is ALL about!

Yes, I *am* running again tomorrow morning, why do you ask?

:-)

May 22 – Beauty in many forms


SongSparrow0

SongSparrow1

This morning I was greeted on my run with the songs you can hear above. Over and over the Song Sparrows in the neighborhood were singin’ about the day getting started (and, I am sure, yapping about this crazy human huffin’ & puffin’ as she jogged past them!)

Here’s what they look like so you can picture them: (I didn’t see them, or take any photos. I was, after all, running!)

As hard as it is to get my Not Even CLOSE To A Morning Person ass out the door (took 15 minutes of internal debate to make it happen), I am always glad when I do. I love being out there in the morning. It’s quiet – so I can hear the birds instead of listening to cars whizz by. No one is mowing their lawn, no kids are in the park playing yet. The temperature is perfect this time of year. No wind, a little moisture from the overnight clouds, no hot sun, just cool comfortable running weather. It also just smells better. Probably the lack of exhaust belching cars again, but I swear I smelled the sweet scent of jasmine in one spot and sweat peas in another that I hadn’t noticed on the same route on Sunday.

My only complaint which will exist as long as I live here are the hills. Kick ass hills. Every damn route I take over 2.5 miles long that involves me just running out the front door vs driving somewhere means at least two 4/10 mile long uphill battles and one more about half that. And are they ever battles! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? RIGHT?!  ’Cause I am gonna get mighty strong doing this shit :->

A quick catch up on yesterday. Eve & Renee and I met for dinner and to brainstorm *seriously* about where we are taking these websites we are creating. Renee is involved now because she is determined to get into fitness coaching. Eve and I needed to solidify what, exactly we are doing with all this. We renewed our own commitment towards the long haul together on this with the intention of being a consulting team for future clients. But first, we need to prove we can do what we want to teach so that means getting a few different types of online business sites up and running profitably (including one to support Renee’s endeavor). We are taking a 5 month online course on the topic which really has us both amped up & excited about our prospects.

Also, what inspired me to look for unexpected moments of beauty yesterday was this site in my rear view mirror as I drove in to work:

Jaguar XK

Doesn’t it look like the car is smiling at you? It sure made me smile and then it reminded me of an Unexpected Beauty meme that I participated in a few years ago. Seemed like as good a week as any to bring it back around.

Oh hey – did you notice the new blog style? If you view this in a Reader probably not, but I did have some fun picking out something a little more spring-y simple and fun.

Had our first Varsity Football parent meeting tonight. Yep – Varsity! How did that happen? They started up with Spring Football – no pads or hitting – it’s essentially two hand touch. But, the skills players like 15 get to start running routes and plays and getting their timing together with their quarterbacks. We are not stressing about academic eligibility as much since we confirmed that his AP History class DOES count a grade higher as long as he has at least a C. We didn’t notice that rule last semester since he had a D ;-> But, he has a pretty solid C which he will most likely keep so he’s already over the thresh hold for fall sports as long as none of the existing grades falter.

And now I need to get back to reading this course module. One thing I’ve learned – I need to close the laptop in order to read and comprehend anything. I’m probably going to have to go over the material 2-3 times for it to sink into these old brain cells. Read it through once. Read it again taking notes and then listen to the audio version just to be sure I don’t miss anything. I’m pretty sure I smelled smoke as I dove into it earlier…yes, my brain is on FI-Yah!

Buzz buzz!