I'm a Winner!

Our management company at work hosted a holiday party on Friday, with hors d'oeuvres and punch and desserts. There was also the opportunity to enter a drawing to win one of several gift baskets so of course I entered. And I won! I love winning stuff. Here are pictures of both the front and the back of the gift basket I won. Quite honestly, most of the stuff in the basket was kinda lame and mostly things I do not eat. However, the basket itself was a black leather magazine basket which is really nice, useful and actually matches the decor in my apartment. It's always awesome to win stuff!

Four trips in four weeks

Sorry I haven't written in like a month. I've been very busy at work, where I've basically had to do the job of two people because the girl who works for me quit. Although, let's be honest. I was basically doing the work of two people for the last three years since this person who quit was basically useless. I'm really thrilled to have someone new come in but before I could find someone, I had to work hard and spend a lot of time looking for the right candidate. The new person starts September 7th. I can't wait to train someone new.

In the month going forward, I might not write a lot either because I have four trips planned, three of them for work. I'll be in Ottawa for three days next week, Philadelphia for one day the following week, back home in Cleveland over Labor Day weekend to attend my high school reunion, and finally in Orlando for work in mid-September. I am extending my trip to Ottawa an extra day and am really looking forward to exploring a new city a little. And, I'm going to extend my trip to Orlando also. Why not? It will be a great way to finish up my summer of overworking.

Mid-Week Day Off

As some of you know, we get a "flex day" off each pay period, which we earn for working longer hours the other nine days in that pay period. The best thing is having 3-day weekends. This pay period, however, I didn't have many options for fitting in a three-day weekend. I had an out-of-town meeting last Friday, attended a conference on Monday, and cannot take off this Friday since the other person in my department has switched her day to then. I guess on rare occasions we can carry them over to the following pay period but considering I worked 58 hours last week thanks to three days at out-of-town meetings, I didn't want to wait any longer for my day off. So, I ended up taking today off, which kinda sucked. I guess it breaks up the week nicely but I also am the kind of person who builds momentum at work as the week goes on. Now, tomorrow is going to be like starting over.

I will say that I actually was pretty productive today, though, a lot more than I am on my usual Fridays off. I did a bunch of laundry, did my taxes, applied for a job, watched 2 movies, ran some errands and attended the Shecky's Girls Night Out event and got my super sweet gift bag. That might warrant a separate post, but not tonight.

Snow update

I guess I never updated everyone about the snow.... So, we basically had an unbelievable 5 snow days! Friday Feb. 5th was an early dismissal of 4 hours. Monday, Feb 8th through Thursday Feb 11th were full snow days. Friday Feb 12th and Tuesday Feb 16th were 2 hour delayed arrival days. That all adds up to 5 days - although I came in on time the delayed arrival days and worked from home for many of the full snow days, so it wasn't really like a super-long vacation really.

There hasn't been measurable snowfall in ten days but that doesn't stop the streets from being a complete mess. Some sidewalks still aren't shoveled so that means pedestrians have to walk in the streets. Many streets are only one lane because there is so much snow piled up on both sides of the street that there is only a clear space for one car to get by. Some streets that are plowed have ridiculously high snowpiles on the curbs, making visibility difficult when trying to make turns. It aggravates me that there seems to have been very little effort on the part of the city, county, state (whoever is responsible) to go back and do any kind of clean-up plowing. At this point, the plows could have easily come back through and made more room available on these one-lane streets. This weekend has been helpful because it's been in the upper 40s - some of the snow is starting to melt.

At work, my Executive Director berated the entire staff at our monthly staff meeting on Tuesday afternoon. She went on about how just because the office was closed for that long, that didn't mean that everyone should do no work. And, we should have all been checking emails and voicemails remotely. She didn't want to hear anyone say anything like "swamped" or "digging out" because of their heavy workload. And, she said that this would have been a great opportunity for those of us potentially interested in teleworking to show her how much could have been done from home. She finished by suggesting that maybe we should not use our flex day for that pay period since we basically got paid for not working all those days. Well, we were all shocked by her reaction and her assumptions and the more we thought about it, we got furious. Why does she jump to the conclusion that we did absolutely nothing during the time off? And, well, really, isn't that's what is supposed to happen the office is CLOSED! Pretty much every person in our office did check their email during the week and many of us conducted teleconferences from our homes. There is obviously a big difference between telecommuting and trying to get some things done with our limited resources during a natural weather disaster. But no one said anything to her and we all just muttered to ourselves about how wrong she was. Although most of us refused to give up our flex day as she suggested - it's one small act of rebellion. I thought about it but in the end, I took my day off. After all, I pretty much got everything done that I needed to do. I'm no longer swamped in the slightest.

Snow Day, Day Three

I guess it's actually Day 3 1/2 since we were dismissed 4 hours early on Friday. Today, though, is one of those blizzardy days with high winds, lots of snow, whiteout conditions, and freezing cold temperatures so I get why today is a day off. The previous few days just had a lot of snow that fell over a relatively short period of time, but the temperatures weren't particularly low nor were the winds particularly high. This city just doesn't know how to clean up after such a large snowfall.

I never thought I'd say this but I'm kind of bored. I've probably worked from home about 8-10 hours over the last few days - there's only so much I can do out of the office. But otherwise, I don't really have a whole lot of accomplishments to list after my five-day weekend. I'm curious to see if we have work tomorrow. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we didn't. It all depends on how quickly they can clean things up and I'm guessing the high winds make that somewhat difficult.

Still Snowed In

Yep, we in DC are still trapped by the snow that fell over the weekend. We had a snow day today and will have another tomorrow. Yay! Can't complain about that. All of the roads around me are really not plowed at all. They are all side streets and therefore low priority, I guess, but it's insane to me to think that the snow stopped more than 50 hours ago and a snowplow hasn't even made it down my street or the neighboring streets. Sure, most of the busier roads near me are completely clear but why haven't all the streets been cleared yet? Not only that, but the above-ground subway stops remain closed and 99% of the bus routes are not working. I guess I just expect a lot because I come from the Worst Winter Weather City in America.

Snow Day!

I just got a call from my boss that the office is closed tomorrow!! Yay! In case you haven't heard, the nation's capitol was hit with a major snowstorm this weekend. It started Friday night around 9pm and pretty much snowed for like 18 straight hours, I guess. The total accumulation in my neighborhood seems to be about 12-14 inches, I'd guess. Today was bright and sunny but since DC isn't used to this type of weather, the road clearing has taken a long time. The major highways and roads were cleared quickly but my street was finally cleared at about 3pm today. And the driveway into my garage still hasn't been cleared, and neither has the side street I can see out my window.

On top of the uncleared streets, public transportation is nearly non-existent. They are only running the Metro underground, so that eliminates maybe about 40% of all stops. Only a few buses were running today.

Anyway, I'm excited to not have to work, but I did have a lot of things I wanted to get done before I left and now I'm not sure how my Tuesday is going to look. I'm heading home on Tuesday and wanted to work just a few hours. Now it seems like it might be more like 4-6 hours. I also have some errands that I have to run tomorrow so I'll hit the roads, but it's great to be able to have all day to do it.

Flowers!

A couple weeks ago, we were having our monthly office birthday party when someone brought flowers into the board room and said the flower delivery was for me! How exciting! I couldn't for the life of me figure out who would have sent me flowers but it was a very pretty arrangement (see below!). Turns out one of the chairpeople I work with regularly as part of my job felt I deserved flowers so she had them sent to me. The card said, "Thanks for all you do!" It was so sweet and unexpected. So I thought I'd share and show everyone a pic of the flowers. And my messy office.

Happy April!

I really don't post much on my blog anymore, do I? Well here's three recent happenings...

#1 - I got my laptop! Yes, in fact, I'm using it right now. It came early, last Tuesday. However, it wasn't without some drama. I checked the tracking info and it said "Item delivered!" Except, no it wasn't delivered. I checked all over the office and it was nowhere. So I called FedEx and the woman seriously said, "It was supposed to go to 4350 and it went to 4250; is that the same place?" Umm, no, no it's not. But luckily the FedEx guy corrected his mistake before the day was over and I walked home with my brand new, shiny, pretty laptop. I've been using it and enjoying it, especially because...

#2 - I've been sick. Yeah, yuck. Just major congestion, making breathing difficult and giving me an awful, awful headache. Allergies are very very common here so everyone asks me if I was sure that it was a cold and not allergies but I'm pretty sure it's just a cold. I mean, I could possibly develop allergies but I've never had them before and here we are like 72 hours after I started feeling sick and I'm already feeling better. I don't think allergies go away that quickly do they? Anyway I did miss two full days of work (in an already short week!) but feel much better as I type here. Thank God for Mucinex D.

#3 - Work has been pretty busy but in a manageable way. They sent me to Chicago last week for two days so it's always fun to get out of the office (although I won't deny that the traveling probably contributed to me getting sick). Even though we really only hung out by O'Hare, a coworker & I stayed an extra night to head downtown. We were going to see Second City but things didn't work out so instead we hit a nice restaurant next door and then walked around Rush Street.

Turned Away

So I'm a big Coke drinker (Coke Zero actually). Anyone who knows me probably already knows this. For work, I've taken to buying 2 liters and keeping them in my office since we have ice readily available and then instead of spending about $1.50 per 12 ounces at the little convenient store in our building, I'm spending about $1.50 for a 2 liter that generally lasts me a week. The problem is that since I don't drive to work anymore, that means I either have to carry the 2 liter on my 10 minute walk to the subway (not very desirable since I'm not kind of a wuss) or I make an occasional trip to work on the weekends and drop off some 2 liters. The latter is what I planned to do today. A grocery store here is selling all its 2 liters for 10 for $10 so I stocked up and thought I would drop like 4 or 5 off at work. Otherwise, they sit in my car. I armed myself with four 2 liters and headed into the building carefully (that's heavy!) and when I got up to our office, I couldn't get in! We have three doors and the door entry code would not work on ANY of the doors. Ugh, I was so frustrated. Usually, the only time we change the door code is when someone leaves and considering I was at work until 6:30pm Friday night, I'm pretty positive no one just up and quit over the weekend. So what's the deal? I'm really annoyed. I came home and checked my work email and there isn't even an answer there. The only thing I can guess is that somehow the daylight savings switch affected it? Who knows? But I do know that all our office bigwigs are out of town until Thursday at a seminar so I can hope that this means we won't be able to come into the office for three days. Maybe?

Back in NoVa

I'm back in northern Virginia after a 4-day trip back home to Cleveland. In Cleveland, I did a little shopping with my mom (of course), visited with my brother & his family (including newborn power sleeper Mia), caught up with some old friends, saw the Browns beat the defending Super Bowl champs, finished my book club book, and worked my way around the mess that is my parents' kitchen while they remodel it.

Back in Arlington, I came home to:
1.) a kitchen light that has all of its fluorescent bulbs burned out. Thanks roommate!
2.) a book club that has been postponed for two weeks - to a date that I can't make. Thanks for making me read a book I didn't enjoy for nothing!
3.) the girl I manage back to her old ways of doing absolutely nothing. She was gone for about two weeks dealing with the death of her father and had a really productive first day and a half. Now she's returned to her useless ways.

The World Conspires Against Me...

So I haven't had Internet at home for about a week now. We were sharing Internet with my neighbor but she moved to the fourth floor and we seem to not get her signal anymore. So it's tough for me, an Internet junkie, but at least I have Internet at work from 8:30 to 5:30, right? Well, not so much. Yesterday, our Internet at work went out at about 11:30am! It was down the rest of the day and actually wasn't fixed until about noon today! 24 hours without the Internet!

To make matters worse, last night after work I went to the library thinking that I might use their computers. When I got there, they were evacuating the building! Apparently the fire alarm had been going off and so everyone was asked to leave and the fire trucks came to check out the problem. I stuck around for about 15 minutes but nothing seemed to be happening so I just decided that someone did NOT want me to have access to the Internet that day and went home. Argh!

On to Game 7 and more

So I haven't been giving game-by-game updates for the second round of the Cavs series but we are down to one more, winner-take-all game after the Cavs got their third victory of the series tonight against Boston. That will be on Sunday at 3:30pm! Exciting!! However, I already have plans for Sunday so I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to incorporate game-watching into those plans. I will either have to be crafty or I will have to tape the game and watch it later as if it were live.

I've been a little busy in the last week. I met with one of my book clubs (we read Water for Elephants) and we are deciding on our next book. I went to a reception for the local chapter of the Special Libraries Association and hobnobbed with other area librarians. I hung out with some coworkers after work and had some drinks. I watched the basketball games. I got free VIP passes to see Serj Tankian because my friend's brother-in-law is in his band. I didn't think I would enjoy that as much as I did but it was really fun! I kept up on most of my television shows as the season winds down. And work has been pretty busy with a huge assignment suddenly thrown at me this last week. But I'm surviving it all.

Overextended?

So now I'm officially in three book clubs, actually four. Well, I guess I'm only officially in one since I've yet to attend a meeting of the others but I've "committed" myself to two others meeting in the next month. Am I crazy or can I do it?

My work book club has decided that the next book will be Water for Elephants, which is apparently about the circus? It was like #1 on a list of "Top Books for Book Clubs" or something too so I guess there is stuff to talk about. I'll definitely give it a try because it's better than the last book: A Tale of Two Cities. Our due date is mid-April.

The Librarians & Friends Book Club is reading books by Valerie Martin this month. I've got two of her books checked out from the library and have had a little difficulty getting into them. But I think that's more because a book club seems like homework and therefore I want to procrastinate and the book club doesn't meet for another couple of weeks so why get too involved yet? These books do sound semi-interesting, though. Our due date is March 26.

I also joined a Miscellaneous Female Book Club (my name, not theirs) with some gals I went out with on Saturday night. Our book is The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt. I had never heard of the book but I do know the author and thoroughly enjoyed his first book, Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, so hopefully this one is just as good. Instead of being about Savannah, this new book is about Venice so I'm expecting a similar type of book. Our due date is April 1.

Finally, the last book club is actually the one I've read the most books for. My friend Catherine & I are reading all the advanced copies of teen fiction books we've been given for free at the American Library Association conferences. We have a collection of maybe ten titles and I find myself most interested in reading those. Probably because they are simple, easy-to-read and there is no pressure of a due date.

Boring book club

A few people at work started a book club and chose the first book as A Tale of Two Cities. Now, I like the idea of being in a book club but I CANNOT force myself to read A Tale of Two Cities. At all. The book was chosen about six weeks ago and I've tried, really tried, to read it. But I hate it. And I end up falling asleep nearly every time I try to read it. It's so frigging boring. I feel bad - as the only librarian at work - not getting through it but geez, it's so dull!! I've been trying - unsuccessfully - to get somewhere with it during most of today but ugh, I ended up just taking a bunch of naps. We're supposed to talk about it on Monday and I guess I'm going to have to not participate because I have absolutely nothing to share. However, I'd like to participate so I can have some input into the next book!

Celebrity Sighting

I saw Hillary Clinton today! Her campaign headquarters are next to our office at work so there have been sightings by some of my co-workers... more often there are just secret service sightings. But today one of my co-workers who actually has a window view called me at about 5:15 to tell me that there was a lot of secret service and gawker activity and that she was bound to come out soon so I went to his office and watched and waited. We saw her at about 5:30!! Another one of my coworkers had gone down there to wait and brought her camera so she snapped some pictures! She got really close but unfortunately the pictures were kind of dark. Anyway, it was a pretty exciting way to end the workday! Also kind of ironic since it was the day I decided to send away for an absentee ballot from Ohio, since I'm still registered to vote there. Will I be tempted to vote for Hillary now that I've seen her in person? I'm not sure. I'm still undecided on my vote. Although seeing her is nothing new. I actually saw her in person in 1992 and not out a window when she came to Cleveland to give a speech during Bill's presidential run. I have a picture of her to prove it - maybe I should get it scanned and upload it.

Travel plans made

Today, I finally booked a flight to Chicago for our work "Annual Meeting" in a couple weeks. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride as to whether or not I was going at all and how long I would be going for if I did go. I'm only going from Sunday to Tuesday, which means I'll miss the big dinner at The Field Museum on Tuesday night, which kinda pisses me off because I was looking forward to that. Oh well, what can I do? I'm not paying and at least it's a short trip out of the office. Traveling for work is fun! Also, I might be able to catch up with one of my friends who lives there!

West Coast time

I got back from my business trip in San Diego today. It was such a fun time, although I did work some pretty long hours! On Saturday morning, I missed my flight (ugh) but still arrived by 1:30pm and spent the whole day with my former roommate. That was awesome! We went to a great Mexican restaurant in Old Town San Diego and also walked around Seaport Village and the Gaslamp Quarter, the two areas closest to my hotel. We also did a lot of catching up!

Sunday morning I had off but then I worked our seminar from noon-8 on Sunday, 7am-8pm on Monday (plus then we had a work dinner here), and 7am-5pm on Tuesday. When I wasn't working, I hung out with my co-workers, mostly in the Gaslamp Quarter.

Here was the view outside of my hotel room window:


Yeah, Pretty cool.

On the way home, I was so exhausted just from working a lot, the time change, traveling, drinking too much and all that other fun stuff. I couldn't wait to get home and go to bed. Of course, now I realize I'm on West Coast time and can't to go to bed because it's like 7:30pm. Thank god I only have two days in the office this week.

Found a place to live!!

I went to Washington, DC, this past weekend to try to find a place to live (after being extremely stressed out about it all last week) and actually found a place. It's an apartment and I'll have a roommate but she seems pretty cool and I think we'll get along well. After living with my parents, I think any place where I get more independence will be fine. She is also currently moving from a one-bedroom into a two-bedroom so she has some adjustments to make too but it seems like there is enough room for me to bring most of my belongings (even those that do not fit in the bedroom) and all utilties are included, plus there is a washer & dryer on premises, a huge balcony with great views of the city and other extra-curriculars like a pool, tennis court and billiards room. Seriously, I want to learn how to play pool because I SUCK at it. All my friends literally laughed at me every time I tried to play the last two years. Another good thing is that the location is really close to where I lived when I was there two years ago so I know where everything is and like it. It's about a 20-minute drive to work, I'm told, even during rush hour. Since I don't have to take the freeway to get to work, I can't imagine traffic is too unbearably stop-and-go. AND, my new employer pays for parking so that makes driving that much nicer! In sum, it's a HUGE relief to have it taken care of...