Concateknit

End as You Mean to Go On

I've been thinking about the New Year a lot, and not about resolutions, exactly, but about the things I want to be more deliberate about in 2013. Although I'd already decided to clean the house today (it didn't happen yesterday) and to get some work done today, the majority of my day was to be centered around relaxing, with tomorrow being the day where I'd really need to start doing stuff.

And then, when I was making coffee this morning, it kind of hit me. I don't need resolutions (not new) but I do need to be more deliberate about the things I focus on and spend my time on (also not new) but being deliberate can only come after I can clearly point to the things in my life that ARE important versus what SHOULD be important and then be focused on those things. Ideally, those two lists are already the same, but you and I already know that they aren't. Is there a lot of overlap? Yes, but not enough - not NEARLY enough.

So here's what I'd like to do - end this year as I mean to go on in 2013. And this means re-thinking my day a bit. It means agreeing with myself about what's important, making a plan, and the most important part: EXECUTING the plan.

That last bit? That's the key to the kind of 2013 I want to have. I am a great thinker. I am a great strategizer. I am a great planner. What 2013 needs to be about is execution of those great plans. This is true in my personal life and my professional life.

In re-thinking my day, and how I want to end 2012, there are a few things that are really important:

• Family/friends: Mike and I will spend quality time together tonight, watching movies, playing some games, and welcoming in the New Year together. I will reach out to a couple of people who are very important to me that I've not done a good job at being in touch with this year.
• Dogs: When it warms up a bit today, we will take a walk around the neighborhood. There are very, VERY few days where I don't do this with them, and today should be no exception. I'll play with them and we'll all cuddle on the couch and I'll be reminded many times how much joy they bring to our lives.
• Health: I was going to give myself a pass today for working out, but I've revoked that pass. It'll be either Pilates or the elliptical, but it will be one or the other.
• Organization: There are a few things that fall under this category:

            Meal Planning: I will make at least one freezer meal, but two would be better. I need to be better about this and planning my meals in advance. The benefits of this are: better nutrition, more free time during the week (when I have the least amount of it), and less money spent on quick lunches/take out, etc.

            Cleaning: I will still clean my house today. I really love a clean house, and I can't really relax in a dirty one. I will also make our housecleaning schedule so that I can spend a few minutes a day cleaning rather than the majority of my Sunday cleaning.

            Work: I need to take some time to put notes together on a few important projects, respond to a few emails, and end the year prepared to take on the new year.

• Fun: I will knit a little bit, I will spin a little bit, I will read a little bit. These are things in my life that bring me great job, and I did none of them nearly as much as I wish I would have. I've been so very focused on work, work, work that I've lost a lot of balance, nowhere as much as in how I spend the little free time I have.

All of this said, it's 10am and so I should probably get a move on. I want to be able to be mindful today as I approach the end of the year and think about what I want 2013 to be for me and those I love. Today I will spend doing things that are important to me either in a micro or a macro sense and I will end this year as I mean to go on.

I wish the best for all of you, and for a 2013 that is exactly what you'd like it to be.

Love,
E

 

Remembering My Girl

It's hard to believe that it's been 15 months since I lost my sweet Allie. Not a day goes by that I don't think of her or that I don't miss her.

I can speak of her without crying now, usually. Mike and I can remember her with love and laughter instead of heartbreaking pain. I've learned how to get along without her, but the hole her death left is still there, and honestly, still raw.

On the day she died, my best friend's daughter brought me wild flowers and I put them in a small little vase that Mike and I got for our wedding but I had never used. I left the flowers on my nightstand until they were dry and all the water was evaporated from the vase. I couldn't touch them, couldn't get rid of the flowers because it seemed to me that such an act would make her death more final than I could stand.

When Mike and I got back together in October, I finally got rid of the flowers, believing she'd want me to let go, move forward, and focus on good times ahead rather than that most painful and bleak of times behind. So I did.

Now the vase sits on my windowsill and I still fill it with flowers for Allie. Sometimes I put wild flowers in the vase, but recently I've put roses from my garden as a way to honor that sweet, loyal, funny and crazy dog while saying a heartfelt thank you to Rosie, the sweet old girl who has been in our life for a year now, keeping Dezi and Zorro in line, following Mike around everywhere he goes, and for every once in a blue moon, for giving me the tiniest of little kisses.

Rosie is not a replacement for Allie. She's very much her own dog with her own personality and her own character. She is good-natured and mellow and she's taught Dezi how to play. She has been a gift to me and Mike and our little family, and I am thankful for her every day, just as I am thankful for Dezi and Zorro and for having had the opportunity to love and be loved by Allie, who taught me so much of what I know about true compassion and patience.

It's good and right to remember her. She was one in a million. Love you, Allie girl.

Where in the World is Concateknit?

Or, thank God my admin makes me travel folders or I would never know where I was supposed to be, especially this month.

Evidence:

1/30 - 2/1: Clearwater Beach, FL

2/3 - 2/8: Chicago, IL

2/8 - 2/9: Las Vegas, NV

2/13 - 2/14: Costa Mesa, CA

2/21 - 2/24: Scottsdale, AZ

2/28 - 3/1: Washington, DC

(Please note, I'm only recapping the last two days of January, the month of February, and the first day of March. March is slightly less scary than February, but is still heavy with the FLYING AND OMG WHERE IS MY DRIVERS LICENSE AND ALSO MY AMEX?)

The one thing (okay, TWO things) I will say about this schedule are:

1) Clearwater Beach, FL is easily one of my most favorite places that I get to visit for work.

This is the view from the balcony of my room at the Marriott Suites - Sandkey, taken at 11am on my first full day in Florida.

This is the view from the deck of the restaurant where my co-worker and I had lunch on Tuesday. We ate here two years ago as well, and it was just as awesome. I even got a little sun on my shoulders (BECAUSE IT WAS WARM ENOUGH FOR ME TO WEAR A TOP WITH SPAGHETTI STRAPS - IN JANUARY).

This is the view from my balcony at sunrise yesterday morning, February 1. I was sitting at my desk working when I looked over my shoulder and realized the sun was rising, and gloriously so. These are the moments where I am keenly aware of how blessed I am to have the job I do, and the opportunities to witness these types of moments because of that job.

2) Although I've been home for less than 24 hours, and even though I'll be leaving for Chicago in about 13 hours, I am, at least, going to Chicago for some PTO. Of course, I have conference calls every day, but I'll be taking them in Chicago, so we're just going to call it a win.

GO PATRIOTS!

Dear Everyone

I'm so tired.

Work, work, work, work, dogs, meetings, work, email, elliptical, food, work, work, work.

Love,

Elisa

(ps: still working)

Note to Self

Dear Elisa,

As much as I agree with you that it is unreasonable for Target to have the bathing suits already on display on January 6th, the fact remains that you DO live in California where in just a few weeks it will be warm enough to go outside without a coat on. And sooner than that, you'll start your crazy work travel season, which will take you to places where it will be warm enough for bathing suits and swimming pools and beverages with umbrellas in them. These things together mean that, as much as I understand why your brain simply said NO at the sight of the bikinis on display last night, the truth is that the NO had more to do with how snuggly your jeans were fitting than any kind of real objection to the idea of bikinis or swimming pools or cocktails with umbrellas in them.

So we must deal with the snug jeans. The cold, hard fact is that it's time to step away from the chocolate covered pretzels and manybeers and allthebread, and get back to a more sensible way of living, eating, exercising and being. It's time for drinking lots more water, having a healthy and tasty smoothie for breakfast, and saying no to Taco Bell for dinner just because it's easy.

Yes, work is stressful and anxious-making and sometimes even tear-inducing, but Elisa - it's almost always like that, and drive- through for dinner won't change tear-inducing work. And yes, work will also be full of the travel and full of the wierd conference lunches, and taking people for dinner, and being all super social and stuff, but Elisa - that's also not unusual, and most of those hotels you go to have nice gyms and even lovely running paths. You have to stop making excuses for why you can't get on the elliptical, go to the hotel gym, blah blah blah, and just deal with the fact that you are 37 years old and you get no more free passes when it comes to eating like crap and not exercising. You eat like crap = you feel like crap. You eat well = you feel well. It's so totally NOT rocket science, and yet you resist making the right choices sometimes with a stubborness that can only be fueled by white chocolate peppermint bark. Or egg nog. Whatever.

Anyway, Elisa, I'm writing this to you to say, sweetheart - suck it up. Make the time to exercise for 45 minutes a day, menu plan and cook so that you can easily make smart choices, and just keep in mind that you do not want to be the one wearing jeans in the shade while everyone else is in the pool.

Love,

E

Let's Not Start This Again, Shall We?

Dear Universe,

You and I have had gotten to know each other fairly well, right? Right. Which means that I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when, after my, "Let's not let 2012 be like 2011" blog post, I start the year with a trip to the vet, a missed work deadline (which I simply Do. Not. Do.) and a 12 hour work day.

And still. Here we are. And I'm not entirely surprised, but I am a little...annoyed.

The missed deadline? I'll assign the blame for that to 2011, as it was clearly 2011's parting shot to me. The trip to the vet? Well, after one night of wearing the cone (it was difficult to cuddle with a cone wearing dog, btw), Dezi doesn't seem to care about that pad on his paw at all, and pays it absolutely no attention. He's back to being his sweet wiggly self, and so the cone has been put away. The 12 hour workday yesterday? I think that's the one that pissed me off. Now - a large part of it was due to making up for the missed deadline, which, you know, happens, and was clearly my own fault, but it sucks that Mike is working from home this week and I'm working ALL THE TIME.

Normally, Universe, I'd be seriously ranting and raving right now. I'd be all kinds of upset and stressed out, and mad, and then Wednesdays would be for crying again, and no one needs that.

Instead, Universe, I'm just going with the flow. If I hadn't missed the deadline, I wouldn't have had to work 12 hours yesterday. If I work smarter, I should be more efficient. And yes, it was a drag not to get home until almost 8pm last night, severely limiting my time with Mike, but you know what? At least I did get some time with Mike, and we were still in the same house.

So, Universe, maybe that's how we will work at getting along this year. You're going to throw me curveballs, that's just how you are, I can't stop that. I can only choose how I respond to those curveballs, and I realized when I walked in the door last night that I had the ability to choose what to focus on - the negative (ALL THE WORK) or the postive (HI MIKE AND THREE GOOFY DOGS!) and I chose the positive. And I let the rest go.

 

So, there's THAT

Well, I didn't mean to start the year off with a trip to the vet, but that's what I ended up doing anyway.

I was petting Dezi this afternoon when I realized that it looked like his dew claws were overgrown and pressing into the pad of his paw. I can't even tell you how quickly his dew claws seem to grow. One day - fine. Next day - EEP.

So I take Dezi to the vet to have them trim his nails. I could do it myself (but Mike and I tried to trim Zorro's nails once and he gave us these SAD CHIHUAHUA EYES and we couldn't do it again) or I could take him to a groomer (but I don't love the idea of people I don't know using cutting implements on my dogs) but I'm really just more comfortable having the vet techs at my vet trim my dogs' nails because a) I know them, and b) they know my dogs.

So you see, really it's no big deal for me to take Dezi to the vet to get his nails trimmed except when it turns into something else. And when it turns into something else = when the lovely tech comes to tell me that one of his pads was infected and the Doctor would like to do an exam, and they'd like to give him some antibiotics. I say "okay" to all of these things because I love my vet, and I go to an animal hospital that has never once made me believe they were suggesting something unnecessary. So, I wait a little while, and the Doctor comes out, and she tells me about the infected pad, the antibiotics and one more thing:

The cone. The vet tech hadn't mentioned the cone.

Needless to say, we are at home and when Dezi isn't bumping into walls and getting caught on things, we're having a little love-in on the couch.

OH HELLO and HAPPY NEW YEAR

So - my thinking things was a spectacular October FAIL now, wasn't it?

Ah well. October turned out to be far busier than I had anticipated, and life just got in the way. NETSM isn't dead, though. I'm not commiting to February, because OH MY GOD THETRAVEL, but it'll be back.

Speaking of back...

In October, Mike and I decided we wanted to really give our marriage another chance, and to that end, I've moved back in with the three little goofies, and, people, I am happy. I am  so much less crazy, and so much less sad, and so much more me now. I have really appreciated all of your support over the past 18 months, and I just want you all to know that I am really doing well, and that I have high hopes for 2012.

I did give 2011 the finger on the way out, because, well. 2011 can bite me. I made it through, somehow, and I would not like a repeat. While I know there are some things (too many things, truthfully) that I can not control, I am commited to making what I can control GOOD.

And so today I began the Great Organization and Purge of 2012. And honestly, it hasn't been that bad, except that the stash...well, the stash has grown and I don't know when it happened. I've never approached organizing the stash with the sense of OH MY GOD WHERE WILL ALL THE WORSTED GO? I also felt a small pang of anxiety when I realized that the container I thought held all my beginner's handspun in fact holds some pretty nice stuff that I can't just pretend doesn't require tending to. Although I am not one normally given to making resolutions, it is clear to me that I need to set some knitting goals (and some revised yarn buying restrictions) for myself for 2012  because, WOW.

I hope that January 1, 2012 finds you hopeful for what the year will bring and at peace with where you are right now. I've got more hope and peace right now than I've had for a long time, and people, it is good.

National Elisa Thinks Conference Travel is Not as Fun as You Think

Here are some truths about conference travel:

1. You are often teased with the locations for your conference travel. Last year I went to a conference that was advertised as being in Washington, DC, and I love Washington DC. Unfortunately, the conference was actually being held National Harbor, about 10 miles outside of Washington, DC, which means that I only ever got to wave at DC on my way to and from the airport.
2. When you aren't teased with the location for your conference, you often don't really get time to enjoy the city you're in. The first time I went to Las Vegas since I was in my early 20s, I was staying at the conference hotel - Caesar's Palace - and I didn't actually leave the hotel for over two days.
3. You may be in a great location, and you may actually get time to enjoy the city, but you have to remember you're travelling with people from work, so you will a) likely have to spend time with your work people and b) do things, like go to dueling piano bars, with these work people because NOT going to the dueling piano bars will get you accused of not being a team player and maybe when you said "But I don't want to go to a dueling piano bar" the response you received was "That was maybe the whiniest voice I've ever heard you use" and so then you had to go to the dueling piano bar in order to prove that you a) were a team player and b) were not whiny.
4. You may be in a great location, you may get time to enjoy that location, and maybe you really actually like the people you're traveling with and no one, not ever, not once suggests that you go to a dueling piano bar because they all know that you have Feelings about such things, and they would prefer that you be happy and not whiny. Unfortunately, you still have your real job to do, and you have to use a goodly amount of that "free" time to get it done. The emails keep coming, the phone keeps ringing, the fires keep burning, and everyone needs all the same stuff from you that they would need if you were in the office, except that now they REALLY need it yesterday and OMG, the sky is falling!
5. Should you find yourself with a great location, time to enjoy it, people you like, and a job well done, it is possible - LIKELY, even, that you will have too much fun and end up having to pay for it the next day when the sky starts falling again and all of a sudden you have too many things to do, have to talk to eleventy millilon strangers, and stand on your feet in uncomfortable shoes while trying not to think about the number of Irish Car Bombs you had last night that seemed like Such A Good Idea at 1am.

Here are some strategies I've developed for dealing with the truths of conference travel:

1. Research your location. If you're going to Schaumburg, IL (I will be going to Schaumburg, IL), resign yourself to the fact that you are NOT going to Chicago. You will likely not get into Chicago for the entire trip and you need to make peace with the fact before you get on the plane.
2. Look at the conference schedule. Are there breaks during the day or do you have to be on the tradeshow floor from open to close? Are there receptions or dinners that you need to attend? If there are, make peace with the fact that you are there for work, and work is not all about fun. Work is about work. And sometimes fun. But mostly work. And then more work. WITHOUT END.
3. Think about who you're traveling with. The people I'm traveling with absolutely influence the experience I will have. Sometimes I travel and get to go to the gym every day and get lots and lots of sleep. Sometimes, however, I end up staying out late (and having to take responsibility for being the creator of the terrible "travel pub crawl" where we pub crawl in every city, which isn't awful, except when we're in Las Vegas and I wake up with bruises that make me look like someone kicked my ass) and I wake up swearing I will never, ever pub crawl again. Until I do. The next time. Irish Car Bombs are so often a good idea that goes terribly, terribly wrong.
4. Remember that you are working and that you have a job to do first and foremost. Also, remember that you are a 37 year old growed-ass woman who rarely stays up later than 10pm when you're at home, and educate people that when you say that you're going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight, you probably mean it. (I mean it. There's no stopping the Elisa Pumpkin Train when it gets going.)
5. Be grateful that you have a job that allows you to travel, and see interesting places, even if you don't get to experience them, because you are working and are NOT on vacation. I complain about travel at times, but I am glad to be able to do it.

Speaking of conference travel, this post is brought to you courtesty of a wi-fi hotspot at LAX (HATE YOU LA). I'll be home for about 40 hours between this trip to San Diego and next week's trip to Phoenix, LA, and then RHINEBECK!

 

 

National Elisa Thinks There Are Worse Places to go Than San Diego

Or, hello, I will be travelling a lot this month.

Boy, oh boy, will I EVER be travelling a lot this month. It never fails that the Universe conspires to kick me in the ass every time I decide to commit to a NETSM. This year, though, rather than shake my tiny little fists at the Universe in rage, I will just try and go with it. I mean, we'll see how that works out for me, but that's my plan for now - going with it.

In the first installment of "Where in the world is Concateknit" I'll be travelling to San Diego for work. I'm going to be working a booth for my parent company, and although I've worked for my organization for four years now (how did that happen?) I am suddenly nervous that I do not know enough about my parent company. So I brought parent company type homework with me in an effort to alleviate my "I don't know enough about my parent company and I don't want to look like an idiot in front of Important Work Type People" nerves.

Because OH HAI, I am always the same worried and nervous person, even when I move across country and change industries completely (no, that shouldn't be surprising, but YES, it was surprising to me when I realized it). I have never claimed common sense as one of my charms.

For tonight, though, I'm packed appropriately for both the conference and the San Diego weather (it will be chilly because not every spot in California is 80 degrees and sunny every day), I've written my note (and check) for the dog sitter (we all LOVE Heather), I've got my knitting planned (three projects for two and a half days is reasonable, right?), I've got my books planned (Game of Thrones, anyone?) and I plan to shut down my computer after I post this and spend some quality time cuddling with my doggies, who may very well think that Heather is their new "That Lady" by the end of the month, considering how much I'll be gone.

Talk to you again soon from San Diego!