run in with the boss's boss's boss's boss

yesterday i decided to leave work a little early so i could go home to catch up on some apartment cleaning that i have been putting off for a little too long.  i kept debating the appropriate departure time internally and finally decided that 3 pm was an okay time to leave.  see, i'm not even assigned to a client right now and i'm not technically required to be doing anything right now, so what's the harm in leavingi a little early?  especially when leaving early, cleaning my apartment, and getting my life in order is only intended to make me a happier person....and therefore a happier employee.

well, when i decided to leave it was actually only about 2:15.  i packed up my stuff as quietly as possible and darted for the stairs.  i'm on the 12th floor, but i'm deathly afraid of being seen getting on the elevators to go home at only 2:15.  i went down 2 floors, to the 10th, then pushed the "down" arrow to take the elevator the rest of the way down.  lo-and-behold, who was on the elevator?  none other than the boss's boss's boss's boss.  THE most important person in this building.  and here i was, bags packed, empty lunch bag in hand.  uuuughhhh this is awkward.

so i tried to act cool.  when he asked "so, what are you up to today?" i pointed to the portfolio folder thingie i was carrying and said "oh, you know.  client stuff".  and he pried, asking what client i was on and who was my boss.  oh, it was terrible.  i wanted to die RIGHT THERE.

on the way home, i festered.  i had lost all motivation to actually do any cleaning.  i wanted to go home and lie in bed in the darkness until the humiliation went away.

but by the time i got some starburst jelly beans i was in the cleaning mood again.  damned if HE is going to ruin my day (except he really did kind of ruin any feeling of self-worth that i had been building up over the past few months).

Seriously, my lack of working at work is just getting ridiculous now. 

playing soccer

and I'm back!, originally uploaded by lizzybee122.

here is a pic of Owen "playing soccer". Really at this age his attention span is quite short and he doesn't really play the game of soccer, per se. The kids basically run around a field and occasionally kick one of the many balls out on the field. Regardless, it's still pretty cute to watch. Especially cute to watch O because he's so freakin' little.

the funny (maybe only to me) story from sunday

So Sunday was an amazingly beautiful day in Northern Virginia (or "NoVA" as we NoVAns like to say).  Being such a nice day outside, Andy and I decided to go on a walk.  Instead of heading the usual direction on the trail (West), we decided to head East so we would run into some restaurants so we could possibly grab some lunch.  I think we walked about three miles (honestly, it was a really long walk) and eventually we get to this neighborhood called Rosslyn and there are pretty slim pickin's for lunch.  But I do see this restaurant/hole-in-the-wall that's called The Italian Store that everyone in Arlington always talks about.  Andy's roommate Will used to stop there all the time to get subs, and my friend Jess makes a point to stop there on the way home every once in a while.

As you know, Andy loves food.  What's more, he loves Italian food.  So we went in to the Italian Store thinking we were going to make out like bandits.  

However, when we got inside, there were crowds.  Lots of Arlington young adults (early-to-mid-twenties) with workout clothes on and trendy sloppy side ponytails.  Me being the socially awkward one of the two of us, it wouldn't have been surprising if I had just said "Let's leave.  Now".  But I did not.  I held my tongue.  We made our way to a less crowded part of the "store", behind the lines of people.  I started reading the menu posters that were mounted on the wall behind the counter (think subway sandwich stores, but a lot more hole-in-the-wall-ish and with lots more people) and Andy started complaining about how many people were in the store.  I said "with all these people, it's gotta be good".  And then he started complaining about how he couldn't read the menu.  So I offered to read the menu aloud.  Then he said it was too loud in there and too busy, and he asked if we could leave.  I tried to make him stay because I knew he would love it, but to no avail.  We walked outside and stood on the sidewalk for about two minutes, him saying "do you want to go back in? I mean, it's just so confusing...how do you know what to order?" and me saying "it's just like going to a cafeteria or any take-out restaurant...the menu is on the wall...but I don't care, we can leave if you want to".  

So, without nourishment, we headed home.  I told Andy he was being a crabby old man and made fun of him for being scared of new things.  He kept asking questions like, "well there was no seating in there...where were we supposed to eat?  Did you want me to get on my hands and knees so you could eat off my back like it was a table?  Will you exchange the same courtesy to me?"  I was proud of myself for being so adventurous and not scared of new things.  The old Liz would've avoided that place like the plague.

We walked through Rosslyn, then Court House, then Clarendon, and finally ended up at Rocklands, the BBQ place about two minutes from our apartment.  

Before we got back home, we were talking about this kid that Andy works with who is asking intelligent questions, and Andy said "and the thing is, he's not just asking them to be a smart alec".  I just nodded and bit my tongue.  It's great dating a grandmother.

Anyway, writing this story down made me think about it more and I no longer think this is funny.  Just a stupid story, really.  Sorry for the let down.

living like normal people

This weekend I didn't have to work. At all. It was amazing to go to bed Friday night without the Saturday crunch looming over my head. I slept like a baby all night Friday night, then snoozed when my alarm went off at 7. I eventually got out of bed, showered, and then headed over to my sister's house. I watched Owen's soccer game with Christie and Nora and it was cold and windy, but I didn't care because I wasn't at work. Also, the sun was shining all morning and that made the chilling wind a little less chilling.

After soccer on Saturday, we took the kids to the mall to get their picture taken at Picture People. It was something I would describe as slightly hellish. Every chance she got, Nora would crawl off the backdrop. She didn't do this in a bratty way, she just was smiling and laughing, thinking "look at all this space!" So it was my job to bring her back and sit her in front of her brother. And every chance he got, Owen would lean into Nora, essentially smooshing her. She didn't get mad, just thought it was a great opportunity to crawl away. Andy M's job was to keep Owen from crawling away, which he was doing to immitate his sister. Christie's job was to flap her hands and clap and say "cheese" behind the camera man to get the kids to smile for the camera which they were never in front of. It was really tiring for all of us.

After roughly fifteen minutes of corralling the kids, the photographer announced that he had enough shots and told us to wait 15 minutes to see the proofs. After approximately 45 minutes, Christie went up to the counter to check the status of our pictures. The guy who had just photographed the kids asked her "have you been helped yet?" and Christie said "yes, we already had our pictures taken, we're just waiting for the pictures" and he said "okay, just wait over there and someone will be right with you". So we waited more. Then some other guy came over to show us our pictures. While we were sitting looking at pictures, the second guy had to go in the back for something. The first guy (who actually took our picture) came over to us and asked "have you been helped yet?" We think he had some sort of short-term memory problem.

On Sunday it was a really beautiful day here in Northern VA. Andy and I decided to go on a walk and grab some lunch in the process. We walked for a really long time. There's a funny story that I should tell here, but I've lost my will to write for now.

Anyway, it was a normal weekend and it felt excellent. So glad to be back to life.

Sorry my blog sucks

I have been pretty bad about this blog thing.  I think it's due to the fact that absolutely nothing ever happens in my life.  Ever.  I have been working lots lately.  My team is supposed to file our report on 3/31/09, then I go to another new client for three weeks, and then I'm unassigned... The wonderful, glorious world of "unassigned".  It means I get to sleep in until 7:30 every morning, roll out of bed, shower, dress, then drive 20 minutes to get to the Tysons office.  At that point, I sit around doing nothing for 8 hours, then I get to leave at 5.  No client interaction.  No real talking unless I want to.  It's pretty much a vacation for me.  It has been over two months since I was out of work before 7:30.  I haven't had a Saturday off  since before I can remember.  My only fear is that some other team will see that I'm available and I'll be stuck on another client, squashing my dreams of a mini break.  

I am reading a book now called "Couldn't Keep it to Myself".  It's a bunch of short memoirs/short autobiographies(?) that these women wrote when they were in Wally Lamb's class at a maximum security prison.  Needless to say, these women didn't have fun childhoods.   Most of them were abused, either physically or verbally.   The stories are really sad, and I've cried through just about every one, but I also can't put the book down.  

I often try to dissect my childhood/early adulthood.  I wonder how things could've gotten so far off track.  I pretty much had a childhood that was perfect.  Granted, there are things that I like to complain about at times, but I have NOTHING on the women in this book.  I had a creek in my back yard and I was free to roam around during the summers, playing all day long.  There were chores in my house, but I wasn't forced to sleep in the basement or deprived of food.  I got to do sports and activities, and I did well in school.  I never got teased in school, I was just always shy and insecure.  

Thinking about myself and my own issues, I get to wondering what my psychiatrist must've been thinking when I was in therapy.  Did he think "Good God, you have a perfect life.  You weren't abused when you were a kid, you're smart, you're college-educated, you're from a middle-class family and had everything a kid could ask for....get over it"?

I hope he didn't think that.  That would be embarassing.

christmas time is here

Since Laura blogged, I figured it was only proper that I update too.  

The government audit I was on finished up about three weeks ago.  It feels like a lifetime ago.  I have been sitting around in the office or at home, doing nothing really, but getting paid for it.  And I love that.  I have four weeks of bliss in exchange for three or four months of hell.  Not a bad deal, I suppose.  I start at a new client in January and I'm kind of nervous about it.  The client has a bad reputation for not caring about anything, and there are a couple of team members I'm not too excited about.  Plus, I don't really know anyone on my team and can say I've probably never even heard the names of most of them.  But it's always hard starting something new.  Hopefully in a few months I'll be able to call some of these people my friends, or if nothing else, my "work friends".  

I'm going home next week.  I think we are leaving Monday after work.  It changes depending on my sister's mood.  I'm looking forward to hanging out with my family for a week and just not working or thinking. 

In keeping with holiday tradition, I have once again baked more cookies than I know what to do with.  I come home from work at a reasonable time these days, and since I have nothing else to do, I just decide to bake another batch of cookies.  They're spilling out of my freezer to the point where I have to start getting rid of my frozen vegetables/other freezer items that have piled up over the years.  It's like I imagine giving trays of cookies to all of my friends...but when the time comes, OOPS I don't have any friends.  So once again Andy will probably have to eat most of the cookies.  

I got new glasses.  I've been having headaches more than usual, and decided that I'd rather have my eyes checked than get the teeth grinding issue resolved.  Hopefully with the new glasses I'll only get headaches half as much.  But we shall see.  

I've been thinking about going back to school for my MBA.  It's a tough decision, though.  It's so expensive, and I don't know how much money it will make me in the long run.  I think it would probably be more profitable for me to just take on another client or something here and work my way up the ladder.  But I think personally I would find more satisfaction in going back to school.  First I'll have to decide where I want to go to school (my top choice is $100k--hoooooly) and then I have to take the GMAT.  Which means studying for the GMAT then filling out those dreaded college applications.  It will take a lot of effort on my part, and I just don't know whether I'm up to it right now.  

I'm going to make a new year's resolution this year.  My resolution is that I will try harder to keep a clean apartment.  This year I wanted to focus on keeping a clean kitchen, which I have been doing pretty well lately.  I have consistently done the dishes before going to bed, and have wiped down the counters after almost every meal/cookie/whatever preparation.  It's time that I grow up and start cleaning up the whole apartment, though.  If it doesn't happen soon, my children will be living in piles of dirty laundry and dust bunnies, and I don't want that.