It’s All Good

This may have been my first week since I started blogging where I did not post midweek. That’s Ok though. I have a new job and that requires mental energy.

After two weeks at the new job I feel comfortable there. The job checks off all the boxes that I was looking for when I decided to make a change.

1. Supervisor and Director - kind, laidback, no micromanaging
2. Sarcastic and Manipulative Assistant Director - THERE ISN’T ONE!😁
3. Coworkers - four of us in a big room; so quiet you can hear a pin drop
4. Staff - I don’t supervise anyone (not responsible for other people’s work)
5. Parking - 5 minutes from car to desk
6. Location - There is a park right across the street; a library in our network is down the block
7. The work itself - I can see that there is less volume of work. The work itself suits me and will be steady and repeating: monthly, quarterly, annual vs. constant flow
8. Desk - no more cubicle!
9. Windows - we have 4 windows in our room (I have always had windows at work but people do ask about this)
10. Kitchen - one floor up is the pink kitchen. I have a place to go eat my lunch that isn’t my desk.

Pretty in pink

Pink couches too 

It’s all good.

Dodge The Deer

On Sunday, I ran in the 17th annual Dodge The Deer 5K trail race.  The weather was a beautiful 70 degrees to start. My time was 37:05 (11:57 pace).  I was #206 out of 236 total runners, which put me at 87%.  That means 13% of the runners finished after me.

Dodge the Deer (wearing #17 for 17th year) and random lady undressing in background

The Hudson River 

I just discovered that I could attach all my races to my personal profile in my running club's website. I spent a little bit of time doing that yesterday. Oh my, there was some really old stuff in there, from 2003, 2004 and 2009.  To me, that is ancient running history, plus a lot of older stuff is missing. The modern era of my running started in 2016. Almost of the races from 2016 to now are in there.

Finish line  

Beautiful day to run trails

Last year at Dodge The Deer, my time was 41:20 (13:18 pace).  Last year, I was #281 out of 316 total runners, which put me at 89%.  That means that last year 11% of the runners finished after me.

My modern racing history shows that I raced in four 5K trail runs since 2017. My times were:
2017  37:38 (12:07 pace)
2018  41:20 (13:18 pace) Last Year Dodge the Deer
          43:27 (13:59 pace)
2019  37:05 (11:57 pace) Sunday Dodge the Deer

Even though I am still near the end of the pack, it’s nice to see improvement.

Last week's workouts: On Tuesday, I did HIIT with Erin; on Thursday, I ran a 2.8 mile trail run; on Saturday I swam 52 laps; on Sunday I ran Dodge the Deer.  (I felt like I had to swim 2 extra laps because the Thursday run was 2/10 mile short!)


Thanks for reading!

Reading Lately

The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood
The chapters in this book alternate between two women - Claire, a young wife and mother in the Washington DC area in 1961, and Vivian, a 37 year old “spinster” who lives in San Francisco in 1919.

Vivien is the obituary writer; her reputation has spread widely so grieving people seek her out to write the life stories of their deceased relatives. Vivien is well suited for this. She has spent the last 13 years grieving the loss of her beloved David who disappeared in the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Apparently his body was never recovered and Vivien is convinced that David is still alive.

Claire, along with all of America, is fascinated with the President-elect, John F. Kennedy, and his glamorous wife Jackie. Claire is married to Peter who has a prestigious government job and is a good provider, but her marriage is loveless. Claire had been having an affair with Miles, who she met while working on JFK’s campaign. The affair ended when Peter discovered them together. Now Claire is 5 months pregnant and doesn’t know whether the baby is Miles’ or Peter’s.

You know the two women’s lives are going to intertwine at some point. The author gives no clue as to how, so when they do come together I was truly surprised. That was a plus for the book. In addition, the author threw in another unexpected twist at the end. Those two surprises were the best part of this book for me.

The problem I had with Vivien is this - would someone really wait around for 13 years for someone presumed dead? She goes to some extreme measures to try and “find” David as well. I mean, get over it!

The problem I had with Claire - is every married woman in books miserable? Yikes! I don’t blame Peter for being edgy after he found his wife in bed with another man. Considering he has doubts as to whether or not the new baby is his, he seemed to be trying to make things work. Claire also seemed unloving to her toddler Kathy while always gushing over her unborn baby.

The worst part was something Claire does that risks her life and that of her unborn child. I don’t think there is a pregnant woman out there who would do what she does. I suppose we should presume she had a moment of mental instability, but at no time does Claire seem unbalanced. Of course the results of her actions are tragic, yet nobody seemed very disturbed.

The book is about love and loss, yet I did not feel emotionally invested in either of these characters.

The Duggars

Are you familiar with the Duggar family?  If you hate them, please feel free to stop reading now. They used to have a TV show on the TLC network called "19 Kids and Counting". After it was revealed that the eldest son Josh Duggar had "issues" the show was cancelled. It was reinvented by TLC as "Counting On" with a focus on the other Duggar children, who are all growing up, courting, marrying, and having babies of their own.

For the record, I do think Josh is sketchy and I'm glad that he is not on the show any longer. Although to give him the benefit of the doubt, supposedly he has been to rehab and is reformed.

Last week, Grandma Mary Duggar passed away unexpectedly at age 78 after a drowning accident. When I googled it, the first thing to pop up was something to the effect that "Jill Duggar Dillard is exploiting her grandmother's death by blogging about it."

Say what? That is beyond ridiculous.  Jill and Derick Dillard have a blog which you can find here if you are interested: www.dillardfamily.com.  Yes, that blog is monetized, like many blogs are. When you click on it, you will see ads.  I saw an ad for Fitbit watches and one to donate to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

As I expected, Jill's tribute to her grandmother was beautiful. Jill wrote "My grandma taught me to thank God in every situation, realizing that only He can see the big picture. She would say, “Praise the Lord” all the time, and even talked about how thanking God for tough things that happened helped her release it to Him and acknowledge that he was ultimately in control."

Jessa Duggar Seewald, Grandma Mary holding baby Ivy Jane, Michelle Duggar (photo courtesy of Facebook/Duggar Family)

While I was perusing the blog, I found so many well written, mature and honest discussions about God, marriage, parenting and other topics.  There was a post by Jill about marriage.  Let me tell you that even after 33 years of marriage there were some thought-provoking tips in that article. Two in particular struck a chord with me:
1. Look for ways to encourage your hubby, serve him and meet his needs.
2. Don’t gossip or name call, even if joking.

My takeaway is that people who hate on the Duggars could probably learn a lot from the Duggars.

Father’s Day Feast

We had a lovely Father’s Day despite the weather not cooperating yet again. As I mentioned previously, Middle Son and his girlfriend are visiting from California. They took a side trip to New York City, retuning Sunday afternoon.

My husband’s cousins came over and joined us for dinner as well.

My daughter has been eating vegetarian for the past several weeks. I took the opportunity to try a new recipe (along with tried and true favorites).

This was the menu:
Appetizers - fruit platter, spinach dip in bread bowl, cheese and crackers, hummus and carrots, nacho chips and salsa. The inspiration for the artistic fruit platter came from my sister-in-law’s sister at the baby sprinkle I went to a few weeks ago.

Artistic fruit platter 

Main course - BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, cole slaw, roasted asparagus with pine nuts from the food network website (I omitted the dates), and roasted sweet potatoes with black beans. That was the new recipe which came from A Couple Cooks: Pretty Simple Cooking by Sonja and Alex Overhiser.

This was yummy

Dessert - brownies and cheesecake

It’s Monday so that means a recap of last week’s workouts: On Wednesday I ran 4 miles, on Saturday I ran 5 miles, and on Sunday I swam 40 laps - for a total of three workouts last week.

Thanks for reading!

Fri-Yay

Wow my post yesterday was a big giant waaah about the old job. I guess I needed to get it off my chest before I could really move on. Like detoxing! On that note here are some positive thoughts for Friday.

New Job
It’s my second day here at the new job. Yesterday was taken up by HR stuff and orientation in the morning. In the afternoon I got a brief tour of the building and shown where to read up about my new job on the computer. I got an ID badge. New Boss has Friday off so this is turning out to be a really quiet day. But day one is always hard and day two is always a thousand times better.

Middle Son
My middle son and his girlfriend came from California late last night. She will be here for a long weekend and he will be here for a week. I’m really happy and grateful that they are here. We haven’t seen him since Christmas. He wants to go out for dinner tonight and on Father’s Day. Sounds good to me. He wants a casual pizza restaurant tonight and a nicer restaurant Sunday. He has a lot of things planned as it’s her first time in the northeast U.S.

Shopping 
I was browsing online last week looking for something new for the new job. I saw a very cute dress at Target. The dress in this pattern was not available online. But another pattern was - go figure. The website said there was one available in my size at the Target in East Bejeezuz (don’t google it; that’s not a real place). It was only 5 minutes farther than the Target we normally go to. I got that dress. From thence to Loft where I got two tops and a pair of the wide leg pants that are popular now. Everything was on sale and the pants were on clearance for $19.88 (originally $59.99).

Other Stuff 
I went to a baby sprinkle for my niece. The concept was new to me but a sprinkle is a baby shower for a second baby. Since the mom already has the big stuff from her first baby, you sprinkle her with diapers, baby wipes, and other small baby gifts. What a wonderful idea!

I went to see another niece in her dance recital. Dance has come a long way since my daughter took ballet. Four out of five routines are hip hop, and there are a lot of boys. The costumes are hip hop street clothes. Most of the other dances were flowy contemporary numbers. Very few sequins, buns and tutus!

We went to watch my daughter go skydiving! It was her first time and it was on her bucket list. It isn’t on my bucket list! But it looked pretty awesome and she loved it.

Beautiful day for a skydive 

My mind was clearly stuck in a negative rut. Ending with a blessing:

New Beginnings

Today was my first day at the new job. So far so good. I shared my blog with former coworkers which meant having to be careful if I wrote about work. I am not going to share my blog here.

Before it leaves my memory (which is already happening) I want to post about the toxic trio that comprised my bosses at the old job.

When I started there almost 7 years ago I reported to the Director D. D was wonderful, kind, smart, funny, knew his stuff - a perfect boss. When he retired, D was on the committee for his own replacement. It was very important to D that the new person be someone who would be good to “his people”.

That good person was Director B. D and B overlapped for several months and that was a great time. Director B continued in the same manner as D. I was completely entrusted with my work duties. When I handed “packages” to D or B, they didn’t even glance at them. They signed right off on them. They trusted that I knew my job!

I should point out that I do not work in the medical profession where an error could be life or death. I work in a field where everything is fixable. If the rare error was made, it was my responsibility to rectify it.

When Director B retired, some higher power decided that the unit needed two Directors. That’s when they hired the two clowns. I called the top guy Stepford Boss (after The Stepford Wives) because he walked around like a robot who never shows emotion. His voice had no modulation - he talked like a robot too. If you asked a question he would quote regulations instead of just answering yes or no. He stayed away from us worker types and let his deputy run the show.

That of course was Asinine Boss, who had to create for himself a job where there previously was none. Nor did there need to be one. Asinine and I clashed from Day 1. He was contentious, angry, mysogynistic and always had to be right. He would change things not because they needed improvement but because he “knows better”. Not many people liked him.

Asinine decided he needed a lapdog so he recruited Useless for the task. Useless had been there longer than me and we got along ok in the old days. He was good at the work he used to do which slowly became obsolete as the unit created new systems. When the unit was reorganized, Useless went to work for Asinine and it was another story.

The management book my old bosses must have read 

So for the last few years I have had to report to 3 idiots instead of one human being. I have been doing the work longer than the three of them combined, yet I was micromanaged and criticized. Everything required three sign-offs instead of one. The packages would sit on their desks for so long that we would need to redo pieces because critical dates had passed (thus causing unnecessary work).

New Boss is young and he seems really nice. I think this is going to be a good new beginning.

My Favorite Fitness Instructors

Last week was unusual in a good way in that I did seven workouts. The best part was three of those workouts were classes taught by my favorite fitness instructors.

On Tuesday I did HIIT with Erin. Erin used to teach until an injury forced her to take a six month break. She returned a few months ago. She is the type of instructor that makes you want to go to class just because it’s her. She is positive and inspiring without being tough or annoying. She doesn’t walk around the class giving pointers; she does it with us. She doesn’t call anyone out for taking it down or using tiny weights. Yes, that would be me.🙂

On Wednesday I did Zumba with Tammy. She stepped down from teaching Zumba a few months ago but happened to be subbing. Tammy is delightful and welcoming. She starts every class “Welcome to Zumba. I’m Tammy. Is this anybody’s first time at Zumba?” Her classes are well planned out from warmup to high intensity, which is important for me in getting a great workout.

On Friday I did yoga with Suzy. This was a real treat because I’m usually at work. I took Friday off (after giving notice Thursday that I am leaving for a new job). The retirees that make up most of the class arrive early, so when I got there 5 minutes ahead the room was already dark and soft music was playing. As soon as she said “Welcome. This is an all level Kripalu yoga class” I could feel calmness entering my mind. Suzy is serenity personified.

In addition to these classes I also did a trail walk on Thursday. It was a trail run but I could not face a slog through a submerged trail that night. Instead I stuck to the dry areas. The nice part was walking allowed me to appreciate the trail instead of just looking down for tripping hazards.

On Friday I ran 3 miles before yoga. On Sunday I swam 50 laps. That’s when I realized that if I worked out once more that day I would have seven workouts for the week. The only thing I had not done was biking.

So I did a 55 minute bike ride on our local rail trail. It used to be railroad tracks but was converted into an amazing paved path for biking and walking. I finally rode far enough to see the bench that our friend had dedicated to his late parents.

It was a good week for working out!

Pretty flowers on my trail walk Thursday 

Sticking with the dry trail 

Reading Lately

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
This is a long book (529 pages) but it is the good kind of long. It could have gone on forever in more ways than one. For one thing, Kate Atkinson is an amazing writer. Second, the story itself could go on for eternity.

It’s the story of Ursula Todd, the daughter of an English banker Hugh, and his wife Sylvie. On the night Ursula is born, in February 1910, a snowstorm keeps the doctor and the midwife from attending the delivery. Hugh is away tracking down his erstwhile sister Izzie, who has run off with a married man. Only the 14-year-old maid, Bridget, is present for the birth.

Ursula is born blue, the cord wrapped around her neck. But, the very next chapter, it is the same snowy February night except this time Dr. Fellowes arrives in time to save the baby girl.

Thus begins the tale of Ursula, who, as she grows up, dies and is born repeatedly. In each new life she  has vague memories of lives past, like deja vu, that guide her to make different choices. Seemingly small changes in Ursula’s actions can and do result in very different outcomes.

By the time Ursula is a young woman it is the 1930’s and Hitler is rising in power. Ursula’s experiences are unique. Knowing what she does, can she do something that will change history? The very first chapter is a clue to the end of the book. You may find yourself going back and rereading that short opening chapter.

Life After Life reminded me of “Groundhog Day”, the movie starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, which just so happens to be one of my favorite movies.

In the movie Phil Conners keeps trying to do things differently and most of the time, the outcome is better. But remember the homeless man who dies that night, no matter what Phil does to try and help? The nurse at the hospital says “Sometimes it’s just someone’s time to die.”

Returning to Ursula, will she use her unusual power to save the world from its destiny? Can she? Read this book and find out.

I highly recommend 

The Eagle Has Landed

I got the job! I found out yesterday afternoon. Since I wanted to call my husband and Useless was right there in the next cubicle, my coworker told me to say “The eagle has landed!” I don’t believe I’ve ever said that before!

I never thought I would be changing jobs at this point in my life. I have 3.5 years to go until retirement. I am old enough to retire now but I want to have 30 years of service with the government. If I retire prior to having 30 years my pension would be subject to a significant penalty. So, yes, my new job is also government but I will be moving to another agency.

This feels like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I emailed my Director and the administrative assistant only. I gave one week notice and I asked for tomorrow off. I’ve already filled out paperwork. I did not email Useless or Asinine. I’m not sure if Director is even going to say anything to them.

I am so thankful that I have this opportunity to make this move. It feels like it’s going to be good.

Another Race

On Saturday I ran the Freihofer Run for Women 5k. My daughter ran it as well. Here are my results:

My pace was 11:12 and I was number 125 out of 233 in my age division. It was good.

Last week’s workouts: Zumba with Michelle on Wednesday, 3.4 mile trail run on Thursday and the race on Saturday.

I’m still waiting to hear from the job that I interviewed for a month ago. They called my references and the potential new boss called me on May 22 (almost two weeks ago) to say they were submitting the appointment package to HR. It is a mystery why this is taking so long.

Meanwhile I applied for a promotion in my current office. The woman who retired from this position did work of a completely different nature than my work. She had a subordinate who is clearly next in line for that job and very capable. I don’t even want that job but it would have looked “odd” if I didn’t apply.

Our administrative assistant set me up for an interview which is in 10 days. It’s so ridiculous because I’m right here. They could interview me any old time, right? However, here’s the conundrum - Mr. Next In Line did not get asked to interview. Nor did another applicant from our unit who would be as good of a fit as me.

I have more years over both the other applicants, but only a year or so more than Mr. Next In Line. Something is going on. Are they going to restructure the unit and change the job description? Another mystery that I won’t have an answer to until the interview.

Such are the mysteries of the work world.