A day in definitions

Sleepy nap head: A condition that strikes when a nap is fulfilling more of your sleep needs then your attempt to actually "go to bed" at night. You know you have it when it takes you more then 15 minutes after the nap to be able to speak, you only communicate in grunts and nods. Other symptoms are sheet face (where the sheets have left crease indentations on your face), drool chin (where you've got a shiny patch of drool that's dried on your chin), and my favorite "the huh's" (where people are saying things to you but you're only thought after each statement is huh.).

Eviction (w)hor-o-mones: A very intense blend of hormones that actually makes there appearance near the eviction of children from very pregnant women. This is not to be joked about, it's a serious situation one that requires a sensitive ear and a near constant filter on the statments made to the (w)hor-o-moner. One wrong thing said to the person experiencing this blend of hormones will lead to immediaite freak out consisting of uncontrollable weeping, doubt of the very deepest variety, threats of divorce and moving back in with ones mother and an intense need for ANY food craving within moments of thinking of it. Be careful, do not AGGITATE the (w)hor-o-moner by bringing the hormones to the persons attention, do not mention that "this is because she's oh so very pregnant" and do not under ANY situation laugh. There are states that allow this person to kill husbands with NO penalty, NY doesn't happen to be one of them but if you're close enough to the CT, NJ, TN, CA, FL, TX border then you should be worried.

Ineedtodo: When said swiftly it means - the need to be doing something. The need is not met because the something is unable to be defined. Nothing will be enjoyed, decided on, accomplished, or experienced in any way until the Ineedtodo's have passed. Things that can help Ineedtodo's pass are Giada Delaurentis, making iced tea in the sunshine and jumping in cold pools.

Hit by the Perspective Stick

I'm taking a break. I was pushing myself too hard to be all things to all people and really I just need to be one thing to one person right now. All I really need to be is good to myself so that I'm being good to my daughter. Lexi needs a safe, peaceful, stress free home for this last bit of time that it gets to be just the two of us - and that's exactly what I'm going to give her.

I'm not exactly sure when I lost perspective on things but I can tell you 100% for sure that I found it again this morning. I was letting the stress of work and life pile up on top of me and I was not being kind to myself, I wasn't cutting myself a break because I'm so very pregnant, I wasn't taking deep breaths, I wasn't sleeping and I was plain and simple over doing it. I'm taking a step back. I'm going to do more of this relax thing I have heard so much about. I'm going to recognize that "everything" does not have to be perfect or even done before I have this baby....life will go on, work will continue without me and you know what? It will be okay.

So if you need me I'll be in a much more Zen place, a place where I get a prenatal massage and soft serve ice cream.

If you had four bullets

The four bullet update

• I'm pretty exhausted. Working 19 hours yesterday was not my best idea ever but I was in a groove and really feeling the push to get things done so that they can be wrapped up...still, not my best idea ever.
• Getting through this week of work is still my goal - I truly believe if I can get what needs to be done this week done then its a coast from here.
• I need to clean the sparkling wonder into my house before Friday and I need to find that moving prayer thing my mom sent me in hopes that nice man loves our condo, puts in a fantastic offer and that everything will work out just as it should. But first, I have to clean the sparkle into my house...groan. I'm going to take a multi-step approach as follows:
• Wednesday - put things that are in the wrong room in the right room and declutter the 100 pregnancy and newborn books that I have in each room.
• Thursday - Dust and launder everything. Have the FH move the furniture around so it is in the best location to showcase size and space.
  
• Friday - Bathroom and Kitchen scrubbing and clean the floors.
  
• Nap. I'm going to need to schedule a nap - let's look at the overwhelming outlook calendar...not looking good for the nap. Hmmm
  

How we Met

So the very HOT AndreAnna had a question on her blog tonight and because I've been working for 17 hours and because I have at least another hour in front of me I decided to take a break and answer her question. How did the FH and I meet.

The first time I saw the FH was orientation weekend at Nazareth College and he was a transfer student and I was an incoming freshmen...I remember seeing him across the gym and thinking he had such a cute baby face. We were in a few classes together that first semester and he was a basketball player and I was on the Dance Team (the Cheerleaders at Naz were real whores so the Dance Team was a good move). I thought he ran funny on the basketball court - and I just loved mocking the announcer as he would say "Namber firtytwo for da Nazareth College Gooowwwwden Fryers INSSSSERRRRRTTTT FH'SSSNAME". I still do it to make him smile because it was just hilarious. We weren't really friends then but we knew who the other person was.

So it was the end of the second semester of my freshman year and I had a HUGE crush on the FH's roommate - HUGE. I L-O-V-E-D this guy...entirely in my mind because in reality I had no idea who he was. Anyway, we were all in Marketing 101 and for some reason I was given the final a week early and the teacher was kind of a dope because he told me to go take it in the library and then slip it under his door in the MORNING. I mean, come on. I'm a goodie goodie but this is just ASKING for trouble. So in hopes of making friends with the love of my life (the FH's roommate) I made a copy of the test for "the guys"....I didn't give them the right answers mind you - just the test. I still can't believe I did that because it is SO not like me. So I drop by their dorm room with the test and as I'm sitting on the sofa with the entire Basketball and Lacrosse teams the FH walks in and says "Yo, did you get the test from that stupid girl." He then see's me sitting there and says "oh." Yup. That's what he said. Needless to say I wasn't all about being this guys friend after that first real interaction.

Fast forward two years and we were both in a Holocaust Remembrance class with my very favorite nun of all time: Dr. Sister Susan. It was time for people to pair up for the big project that would make up about 1/2 of our grade...and she was assigning partners based on their "stregnths". The FH and I were paired off - I think it was because he is Jewish and was constantly challenging the whole Catholic thing and Sister Susan felt like I could run him into doing a decent job. She was right. We met with a survivor and the FH really impressed me - he was very thoughtful and knowledgeable and really reached out to this women...so I overlooked the stupid girl comment. After we met with this women the FH asked me if I'd like to grab lunch and I said "sure, want to go to Lordes dining hall?" to which he scoffed "I think we can do a little better then that."

The FH took me to this AMAZING greek hole in the wall and taught me how to eat a Gyro that day...we had easy conversation and we decided that we could be friends. From there we started talking all the time and he would call me and ask for help on homework and I would come over to his apartment off campus and bring him milkshakes from Friendly's or Peligrino. We were always just friends and then one night he walked me out to my car and we kissed - he of course wanted to more then kiss...but I wasn't that kind of girl. You want to kiss me then you've got to date me and the FH didn't want to date. So that was that. Just friends.

That next year was tough - the FH graduated and I was a senior in college - that summer my mom had breast cancer and I had a lot going on myself including a scare with a tumor and a bad case of mono...the FH was there every single day on the phone. Even when he was in Europe playing basketball he called me EVERY single day to see how I was. He was my very best friend. We talked for HOURS and hours and hours. But still, just friends. Something happened and around graduation time we didn't talk for about 6 weeks...I don't even remember what it was. Hmmm. I'll have to ask him when he's awake.

One bizarre day I sent him a very long e-mail and as I clicked send the phone rang and it was him. Obviously he hadn't gotten my e-mail but we were on the same page. He said that he loved me, that he wanted to be with me, that he didn't want to ruin my senior year of college being in a long distance relationship, that he wanted me to have the fun that I had without the baggage of a boyfriend hundreds and thousands of miles away. I told him it was all too much, I hung up the phone and we didn't speak again for months. I just couldn't process it all - how could he love me? How could he not tell me all this time? Why would he let me get hurt by other guys and listen about it?

We started talking again when I started traveling a lot for my job as an outsourcing / consolidation project manager. We were back to just friends because I couldn't deal with the bigger. Then one day I was standing outside of the hotel in Pasadena, CA getting ready to go to the office and he called my cellphone and told me that he needed to have surgery on his ankle. And it was in that single moment when I was completely and totally concerned about this other person that I realized that I loved him too - that I simply could not spend another minute away from him and that I would do anything so that he wouldn't be in pain- ever again.

I went to visit him after his surgery and that weekend of really getting to know his family and being there for him the way a partner is there for someone that they love I decided that I had to move here - I had to be with him. The next three months kind of flew by and things just worked out and that summer I moved to Westchester and we've been basically married ever since.

I am such an emotional mess I'm tear streaked just thinking about all that good stuff....about how that felt back then. I love him so very much. I may be the luckiest girl in the world to get to share my life with him...and we're both so lucky because we're going to have this little girl together.

Is this a "sign"?

The History: A long time ago (before I was with child) we had our Condo on the market. The market was not so good but we wanted to be out of the Condo because we really wanted to not be in a Condo when we were planning on starting a family. I got pregnant and the constant house showings with no results were getting to be too much - having your house "show" ready every morning is a lot of effort and it was just too much for me. So we took the Condo off of the market. It was a bummer because we really wanted to sell but it was just too much and we took a "make it work" approach instead. And we have - we've made it work.

Last night I receive an e-mail from our Realtor - a man that had seen our house way back then was very interested in our house but was not prepared at the time to make a move. Now, apparently he is ready and would like to swing by the house on Friday to take a quick looksee and then put in an offer. This has me feeling so many very different things all at once it's a little overwhelming. Could this actually happen? Could it be this easy? Is this a sign? Or is he going to put in a rediculous offer and this is just me getting my hopes all up? When would he want to move? How will I get the house in show ready form by Friday with the amount of work on my plate? There is a LOT to do as when we're showing the house we pack up a lot of stuff so that it is sparse and now...well there is a lot of stuff out not to mention the baby stuff that is - no lie - EVERYWHERE. When would we move? It would of course be after Lexi is born - but how would that be moving with a little baby - I think it might be easier then moving in my current state - and we would get movers and packers and I think we'd likely have a sale and not take some of our things with us.

Now here's the biggest question - where would we go? We're not going to buy just yet - we're going to rent for at least a little bit...but where? We've talked a lot about leaving Westchester and in so many ways we really NEED to leave Westchester but it involves leaving people and places behind that have been part of our routine for the last five years.

Would we move to Rochester? We talked about the economies of such a move and it really would give us a level of financial independence that we could never achieve in Westchester - life is cheaper up there and the living is cheaper - they also get more snow. It's also going back. Is moving forward sometimes about going back? Do I have it built up in my mind? Is the allure of being within an hour of my family blinding me to the down sides?

Would we move to Connecticut? Allowing us to stay where we're at basically just a bit more reasonably - it wouldn't change our financial picture but it would be a move to a house of some kind and we'd have more space.

And then the big one - Santa Barbara. Is this a sign? Should we look at taking a trip to the west coast? This has been a dream of the FH's for a very very long time. And to be honest, I love it out there too...but a move of that scale just seems....huge. The thing that keeps playing over and over in my head is: if not now, when? When kids get to be in school it seems that the reasons to stay put just get bigger and bigger and why not give it a try now when we're still very mobile? We're not going to buy a place right away we have two years to reinvest our investment in another house and we could certainly give California a try for 6 months to a year to see if we like it...if nothing else we would be able to say that we did it. The FH would have the experience of fulfilling another dream and I would get to see that happen. And it's not like we couldn't come back if it wasn't for us.

Last night the FH and I walked around the cul-de-sac - he had a rough day and had some difficult decisions to make. So we were talking things through and there was a double rainbow and the most beautiful rose shaded sky I had seen made an appearance...it was too perfect to capture in 10 Megapixels. And I said to him that this is a sign, the changes in our life, the changes in his business, the sky, this baby - it's a sign that we're always moving forward. That even after a storm there is beauty...that the unexpected and unplanned is sometimes the most rewarding. We came in after our walk and the e-mail was in my inbox. So, yes, I believe in signs.

Corporate Cass: Want to have a meeting?

How much of your day is scheduled in meetings? While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning there was an interesting article about the struggles of the C-level executive and their over-scheduled day. No doubt this is a serious issue but I believe the larger issue is the schedules of all managers and employees a like and how those schedules are managing their day.

Conference calls and online meetings have changed the landscape of meetings making people constantly available to participate for better and for worse. So lets paint a blue sky picture of how a good meeting practice would be established:

Step One: Identify the types of meetings that your team needs to have. Does your team function best with working meetings, status meetings or a combination of both? We'll dig into the defining pieces of a working meeting versus a status meeting in an upcoming post.

Step Two: Do these meetings need to recur; if yes, how frequently? It's far too easy to set up recurring meetings each week - it's a great plan to evaluate if these meetings need to occur each week or if a by-weekly or monthly meeting would fit the needs of the meeting.

Step Three: Who needs to be on the calls and what are the roles of each of the participants? If the person doesn't have a role on the call then they shouldn't be invited - extraneous people on calls is a waste of their time and will add conversation that is out of scope for the meeting. It's best to establish the practice of minutes distribution to a larger group then the attendee list for those that only need to be informed and not contribute on the topic.

Step Four: How long does the meeting need to be? Booking an hour when 40 minutes will do is a very fast way to waste 20 minutes.

Step Five: What day would be most effective for this meeting and at what time? Status meetings on Friday's for example simply do not make sense as most people will forget the action items that they carry with them for the upcoming week over the weekend. Brainstorming calls are not effective on Monday's as people are focused on what they need to accomplish that week and therefore aren't likely to embrace the free-form nature of a brainstorming call. And consider the time of day for your call - If your intention is to hand out action items for the participants then a call that happens before noon will ensure that people take those action items to task that same day.

Step Six: The privilege to setup a meeting. This is an important piece to the meeting puzzle - who can setup a meeting and who can not. My policy would be very simple - if you have an agenda, if you've been thoughtful about the first five steps then you can invite employees to attend a meeting. If you are not able to define the agenda and the purpose of the call or if you've had more then 2 calls where your agenda was not addressed or the purpose was not fulfilled then you are no longer able to book meetings - you'll need to find a senior person to champion your meeting and administer it.

Would your organization benefit from a two hour evaluation of your meeting practices - I dare say that the investment in that meeting would be worth it's weight in hours and hours.

Upcoming Posts:
Meetings - are you Working?
Should you be Multi-tasking?
Motivators vs. De-Motivators

Get in the Hole

There are some things that I just can't stand. Like people that drive Lincoln Navigators and cross four lanes of traffic to cut me off on the exit ramp without using a single turn signal....I mean seriously - if you're this clueless just wait until the next U-turn and give the exit another go.

We're watching some golf tonight as it's what the FH wanted to watch. I don't mind watching, it's the listening that I can't stand. I hate the whispered tones of the announcers that are NO WHERE NEAR the actual shot so the whisper is all just a big fraud. What is up with the whisper anyway? Do you know of any good whisperers? I don't and I'm an awful whisperer - I try to whisper and it makes me giggle...it's the 7 year old in me.

The thing about watching golf on tv that really bothers me is when the ball is hit and you have one or a chorus of grown men shouting at the ball to "get in the hole". What is that? The ball doesn't take direction and the wind isn't listening and as far as I know the follow through on the shot is really more of a show factor then a steering mechanism for the ball. What does it say about you if you're yelling "get in the hole" at the golf ball? I yell during sports frequently, it's fun for me. I've never met a ref at the NBA, Division 1, Division 3 or High School level that didn't need my direction on calls in the form of a loud suggestion some people call "being rowdy". I like to yell during football games...but I yell things like "catch the ball" to actual players. I don't yell at the football to "get in the endzone" that's just strange.

Am I the only one that imagines these guys yelling such suggestions in the bedroom? I know - straight to the gutter but let's be honest - you went there with me. We are members at a country club that "used" to host the Barclay's Classic and so I've been to the club a few times during the event and when I go to the club on those days I'm always stuck staring at the men in the madras shorts with the socks and loafers and I have to qualify them as either "get in the hole" shouters or not. It's a fun game.

It is Father's Day today - the FH has enjoyed the day and I gave him a little golf set for Miss. Lexi to start using as soon as she's able to walk. It was the perfect gift as the FH is always very interested in doing things just her and him. He's going to make an amazing Daddy. He's so excited to meet her and to hold her and to smell her. She's a lucky little girl. And I can't wait to see my girl with her Daddy. I know what a special relationship with a Daddy is like - because I have one. Knowing that you're a princess to at least one man in the world for the rest of your life is a good feeling and I love knowing that Lexi will always feel like that to at least three, her Daddy and her Grandpa's.

I'm in denial about it being Monday in a few hours and about the start of another week of work. I am very hopeful that it will be a fantastic week - I've got two gigantic projects and two smaller but still big projects that are all wrapping up/launching this week so I'll feel a lot more settled work wise when that is set. Here's to hoping it all goes smoothly.

One last thing...and hopefully I haven't bored you with the rest of this stuff and you've made it this far. Baby Swings? Is this something I should have? We don't have one...we have the vibrating chair thing and probably every other thing a baby could possibly want including three strollers (one heavy duty for jogging/long walks, one umbrella for when she's a little bigger, and one that fits the carseat thing) - but the swing it's just so big and I'm already feeling crowded by baby stuff so I was thinking maybe we don't "need" it but should I get one? Will this be the thing that soothes my child? It's not about the money....so let me know.