So I got whatever is going around. I have no idea how since I rarely go places, but there you go. It's been one of those colds where everyday brings you a new and interesting facet. Saturday - sore throat; Sunday - sore throat got so bad it moved to my ears too; Monday - snot added itself to the equation; today - stomach cramps. We'll see where tomorrow takes us. Oh, and it's one of those colds that isn't completely debilitating. When you sit on the couch for three hours, you feel fine; but the second you stand up to make meatballs, your body say "um, e'scuse me? where do you think you're going?"
Bookclub #2
So I met for the first time with the other book club I joined, called "Booze, Books, and [insert name of book here]. We met at a bar and it was awesome. There were only four of us and we spent more time gossiping about our lives than talking about the book, which was just fine. We read Not That Kind of Girl, which I hated. Seriously, I've seen Lena Dunham a few times on tv being interviewed and always thought "wow, that girl really speaks her mind. go her!" but after reading this book my opinion changed to "dude, maybe you should filter yourself just a little bit." And I now have absolutely no desire to watch Girls at all.
But again, very fun book club and I'll definitely be going back.
Australian Open
It's happening and Jeff was very sad when 'the Fed' (that's what I call Roger Federer) got defeated in the second round. I think we're about to see a huge change in the top eight this year because there are a lot of young players starting to come into their own. This idea was solidified more when Nadal was knocked out by a younger guy. One of Jeff's life goals is to see the Fed play in person, and we're pretty sure that means we have to sometime this year, so I'm now haunting the internet for signs of him saying he's going to the US Open in August. My original idea was to go to this Australian Open - until I looked up plane ticket prices and discovered getting there would be about six grand. So that didn't happen.
Super Bowl Par-tay
We have been invited to a Super Bowl party with some new friends and I am very excited. I've started feeling gloomy about friends again in the past few days because we drove Sean, our only friend we have made all on our own, to the airport so he could move back to Connecticut because he broke up with his girlfriend and wanted to move back to be with his family. It was very sad.
Mentoring is awesome
So the project I talked about a few weeks ago where I was kicking ass and taking name - this project is becoming a huge learning experience for me on multiple levels.
1. The first level is financial acumen. I'm working really closely with our COO right now because the sales guy on the project vastly underbid the project (by about three-fold) and we're having to develop our presentation of the bad new. But I'm learning a lot about how to do that from an expert (up until now I just had to wing it).
2. Mentoring - the designer on the project is right out of school and consequently has never done this type of project (let alone one of it's magnitude) and has little experience interacting with clients on a daily basis in a business setting. So I'm spending a lot of time mentoring him and it's great fun. He's really eager to learn and I'm finding how much I've grown just in the past year as a PM. Today I was coaching him on how to write emails to clients, and it was amazing to me how easy it was flowing from my fingers. One of the principles I've always had, but am really flexing in this scenario of telecommuting, is empowering my team. So watching him learn how to interact and deal with the client - and be a part of that learning process - is awesome.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Awesome things I've seen in the past week
SpaceX Dragon
Sean told us that we needed to hightail it over to the Museum of Flight last weekend because the SpaceX Dragon was going to be there. So we did. And it was awesome. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was "Wow. It looks exactly how I would imagine the Millennium Falcon looks like up close"...which Sean said was a compliment for the Star Wars props department more than anything. Anyway, it was so cool. It's been to space - recently!
My new desk chair (and the house it came from)
So Jeff and I have been having a problem. When we are both working at the same time, someone gets to sit in the nice Herman Miller Embody chair and the other person is stuck with the 1970s orange office chair I got from the basement of the Whitworth print shop that is completely broken and squeaky. As much as I love this chair for it's sentimental value, it was not a good long term solution. So Jeff really wanted to get a Herman Miller Aeron chair, but I told him buying two big office chairs wasn't necessary, especially since the goal is having Jeff being the only one working from home as soon as possible. So I dug around craigslist and found an awesome 1970s orange Herman Miller Aeron chair (or the equivalent) for a hundred bucks. So I told Jeff to contact the guy, and we went to check it out. And when we got to this guy's house, I wanted it all. He had a beautiful collection of mid-century furniture - multiple sideboards, a gorgeous bar cart, a low slung couch. It was amazing. I wanted it all. But I settled for the chair.
My unicorn lamp lives!!
After taking the picture of my new chair, I realized I was being dumb. I have a dedicated work desk but none of my work desk accessories set up. So I had to rectify that. And I'm excited to say my unicorn lamp still lives.
Sean told us that we needed to hightail it over to the Museum of Flight last weekend because the SpaceX Dragon was going to be there. So we did. And it was awesome. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was "Wow. It looks exactly how I would imagine the Millennium Falcon looks like up close"...which Sean said was a compliment for the Star Wars props department more than anything. Anyway, it was so cool. It's been to space - recently!
 |
| It's been to space - recently!! |
 |
| Up close it looked like styrofoam |
My new desk chair (and the house it came from)
So Jeff and I have been having a problem. When we are both working at the same time, someone gets to sit in the nice Herman Miller Embody chair and the other person is stuck with the 1970s orange office chair I got from the basement of the Whitworth print shop that is completely broken and squeaky. As much as I love this chair for it's sentimental value, it was not a good long term solution. So Jeff really wanted to get a Herman Miller Aeron chair, but I told him buying two big office chairs wasn't necessary, especially since the goal is having Jeff being the only one working from home as soon as possible. So I dug around craigslist and found an awesome 1970s orange Herman Miller Aeron chair (or the equivalent) for a hundred bucks. So I told Jeff to contact the guy, and we went to check it out. And when we got to this guy's house, I wanted it all. He had a beautiful collection of mid-century furniture - multiple sideboards, a gorgeous bar cart, a low slung couch. It was amazing. I wanted it all. But I settled for the chair.
 |
| We now have two Herman Miller chairs :] |
My unicorn lamp lives!!
After taking the picture of my new chair, I realized I was being dumb. I have a dedicated work desk but none of my work desk accessories set up. So I had to rectify that. And I'm excited to say my unicorn lamp still lives.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Eyebrows are important
I finally went and got my eyebrows done. It's taken me a week and a half to get there and having wax rip hair off my face made me feel more amazing this afternoon than it should have.
The reason it's taken me this long is because in the city getting your eyebrows waxed is an experience. In Spokane, Jewel, my fabulous hairdresser since I was 14 has always done them during my hair appointment. But in the city, it's different. I go to a place that does nothing but slather hot wax on various parts of your body and then rip it off. They serve wine, have stacks of US Weekly, dainty handmade jewelry for sale, and relaxing music. And they have happy hour. Everyday from 1-3 in the afternoon, eyebrows are half off. And you can't make appointments in advance.
So for the past week and a half I've been trying to make it to happy hour. And due to work, I haven't made it. And it was getting to the point where I had one eyebrow instead of two. My loving (and fashion-impaired) husband told me I still looked beautiful and "no one can tell," but I was becoming obsessed with them. I wanted them fixed and I wanted it to happen now (at happy hour prices of course). So at 1245 today, my 2 hour design meeting ended early and I had an hour before my next meeting. So, instead of doing my end-of-meeting wrapup email to myself and anyone else who needed it, I said "fuck it" and left. And I went and read US Weekly for 15 minutes and then chatted with the nice lady about the Seahawks while she applied lovely smelling wax on my face and ripped it off. And it was glorious. Such a tiny thing, that in all reality, no one has noticed. But I felt like a new woman as I walked out. And that's what's important.
The reason it's taken me this long is because in the city getting your eyebrows waxed is an experience. In Spokane, Jewel, my fabulous hairdresser since I was 14 has always done them during my hair appointment. But in the city, it's different. I go to a place that does nothing but slather hot wax on various parts of your body and then rip it off. They serve wine, have stacks of US Weekly, dainty handmade jewelry for sale, and relaxing music. And they have happy hour. Everyday from 1-3 in the afternoon, eyebrows are half off. And you can't make appointments in advance.
So for the past week and a half I've been trying to make it to happy hour. And due to work, I haven't made it. And it was getting to the point where I had one eyebrow instead of two. My loving (and fashion-impaired) husband told me I still looked beautiful and "no one can tell," but I was becoming obsessed with them. I wanted them fixed and I wanted it to happen now (at happy hour prices of course). So at 1245 today, my 2 hour design meeting ended early and I had an hour before my next meeting. So, instead of doing my end-of-meeting wrapup email to myself and anyone else who needed it, I said "fuck it" and left. And I went and read US Weekly for 15 minutes and then chatted with the nice lady about the Seahawks while she applied lovely smelling wax on my face and ripped it off. And it was glorious. Such a tiny thing, that in all reality, no one has noticed. But I felt like a new woman as I walked out. And that's what's important.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Kicking ass and taking names
Today I was proud myself on a career level:
On one of my project, they told us from the beginning that they had another design firm on retainer and they wanted them to do the UI and us to do the UX. so we met with the guy from that company, Tom*, today and we started talking and he said that even if our designer did wireframes they would redo them so they were “sexy.” so i asked if they would be using bootstrap, bc you know coding. tom instantly went on guard and informed us that he had never used bootstrap and that “i don’t like responsive design” and “i can’t control the design if it moves around.” at this point he tried to move the conversation away from that and i was like ‘oh hells no’ so i stopped the convo and went back to that and basically was like “[client], if Tom redoes the wireframes and then adds UI but doesn’t do responsive that will be a waste of time.” so then the client cut the meeting in a nice way and we got back on the phone with her after and she was instantly apologetic and knew that Tom was out of line and not a good fit, so we came up with a solution where they are just providing us with the style guide and we’re doing the rest.
I was really proud of how I handled this guy who basically came into the call super cocky and instead of rising my hackles in a way that made me come across unyielding or non-compromising, I instead stuck to my guns of protecting my team (which is always my number one goal) and was able to show the client that using this guy in the way she originally foresaw would not be beneficial, but we could "definitely still use his input on UI elements."
*name changed
On one of my project, they told us from the beginning that they had another design firm on retainer and they wanted them to do the UI and us to do the UX. so we met with the guy from that company, Tom*, today and we started talking and he said that even if our designer did wireframes they would redo them so they were “sexy.” so i asked if they would be using bootstrap, bc you know coding. tom instantly went on guard and informed us that he had never used bootstrap and that “i don’t like responsive design” and “i can’t control the design if it moves around.” at this point he tried to move the conversation away from that and i was like ‘oh hells no’ so i stopped the convo and went back to that and basically was like “[client], if Tom redoes the wireframes and then adds UI but doesn’t do responsive that will be a waste of time.” so then the client cut the meeting in a nice way and we got back on the phone with her after and she was instantly apologetic and knew that Tom was out of line and not a good fit, so we came up with a solution where they are just providing us with the style guide and we’re doing the rest.
I was really proud of how I handled this guy who basically came into the call super cocky and instead of rising my hackles in a way that made me come across unyielding or non-compromising, I instead stuck to my guns of protecting my team (which is always my number one goal) and was able to show the client that using this guy in the way she originally foresaw would not be beneficial, but we could "definitely still use his input on UI elements."
*name changed
weekend thoughts
Book Club
The Yes Please book club met on Saturday and I loved it. It was at a lady's house in West Seattle, and I told Jeff when I got home if there was more than one stinking bridge connecting West Seattle to the rest of Seattle (and we had a million dollars) I would say we should move over there. But anyway, the food everyone brought was amazing and I, as usual, was the person getting 3rds while all the fit Seattle people talked about their fitbit wristbands and how many steps they walked that day (one girl said her usual is 5 miles a day. 5 miles?!?!? these healthy seattle people are crazy sometimes).
But the best part was of course discussing the book. I was in love to hear that everyone thought she came off slightly bitchy, but in a "i am woman, hear me roar" way. And then I brought up the point about how I felt she really wrote from her specific place in life (40s, 2 kids, middle of career) and one of the ladies who was there said that made her relate to it more. So it was really interesting to see where we agreed and disagreed on things.
All in all. Excellent book club. I'm definitely going back.
Foodista Outing
One of the other meetup groups I belong to had a brunch on Sunday and it was fun. I go to these specific meetups with the mindset "I'm most likely never going to see this woman again, so lets have deep chats" and we always do and it's great fun. It's like speed-friending. We went to Percy's and Co and my drink was delicious. the food was ok.
I am Malala
I finished reading I am Malala this weekend (while watching the Golden Globes - talk about your juxtaposition) and then called Nani and had a long discussion about it. And I came to the conclusion that this book really shows how different the world is in different areas and how un-relatable her story is to my life. She is fighting for things that we totally take for granted to the point where we complain about. She was having to hide and risk her life to go to school. The other thing I took away from it was her innocence. Remember when she wrote the book she was 15, so every once in awhile she would make a comment like "I just didnt understand why X and Y were happening and the government should do something about it." Even with all her experience going and speaking around her country and meeting all these people, she's still a kid. Even now, with a Nobel Peace Prize, she's only 17.
A more selfish thing I took away from the book was being proud at myself for knowing things about politics. She mentions in the book meeting Richard Holbrooke, whose name I recognized because I read Hilary Clinton's memoir from when she was Secretary of State (ok ok I read 2/3 of it, but that was farther than I thought I was going to get). But I felt smart because I recognized something about politics.
The Yes Please book club met on Saturday and I loved it. It was at a lady's house in West Seattle, and I told Jeff when I got home if there was more than one stinking bridge connecting West Seattle to the rest of Seattle (and we had a million dollars) I would say we should move over there. But anyway, the food everyone brought was amazing and I, as usual, was the person getting 3rds while all the fit Seattle people talked about their fitbit wristbands and how many steps they walked that day (one girl said her usual is 5 miles a day. 5 miles?!?!? these healthy seattle people are crazy sometimes).
But the best part was of course discussing the book. I was in love to hear that everyone thought she came off slightly bitchy, but in a "i am woman, hear me roar" way. And then I brought up the point about how I felt she really wrote from her specific place in life (40s, 2 kids, middle of career) and one of the ladies who was there said that made her relate to it more. So it was really interesting to see where we agreed and disagreed on things.
All in all. Excellent book club. I'm definitely going back.
Foodista Outing
One of the other meetup groups I belong to had a brunch on Sunday and it was fun. I go to these specific meetups with the mindset "I'm most likely never going to see this woman again, so lets have deep chats" and we always do and it's great fun. It's like speed-friending. We went to Percy's and Co and my drink was delicious. the food was ok.
I am Malala
I finished reading I am Malala this weekend (while watching the Golden Globes - talk about your juxtaposition) and then called Nani and had a long discussion about it. And I came to the conclusion that this book really shows how different the world is in different areas and how un-relatable her story is to my life. She is fighting for things that we totally take for granted to the point where we complain about. She was having to hide and risk her life to go to school. The other thing I took away from it was her innocence. Remember when she wrote the book she was 15, so every once in awhile she would make a comment like "I just didnt understand why X and Y were happening and the government should do something about it." Even with all her experience going and speaking around her country and meeting all these people, she's still a kid. Even now, with a Nobel Peace Prize, she's only 17.
A more selfish thing I took away from the book was being proud at myself for knowing things about politics. She mentions in the book meeting Richard Holbrooke, whose name I recognized because I read Hilary Clinton's memoir from when she was Secretary of State (ok ok I read 2/3 of it, but that was farther than I thought I was going to get). But I felt smart because I recognized something about politics.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Job update
ok, so I didn’t get the job. but she said the ONLY reason i didn’t get it was because the Lead Dev came back with a curve ball and said for the first time ever “i want a more tech based PM.” But she said that everyone really liked me and my energy and my “obvious passion for what you do” and they are currently looking for the Lead Dev for a whole new team (they want to split off membership into it’s own team) and once she has the Lead Dev in place she would like to reach out to me again and see if I’m a good fit with him/her. so I feel like I lost the job on a technicality and she totally made my day by saying “basically as soon as we have another team, we want you”
Monday, January 5, 2015
A letter to Grandma Marty
Work sucks. I can literally feel myself wilting away from it. My extrovert-ness is very upset right now. However, I am waiting to hear back from a company I did a second interview for last week. That actually looks like it has a lot of potential and I'm expecting to hear good things. The company is a tech company and I would be working on one team with six other devs who are in charge of the billing system for one of their websites, which has a lot of business intelligence stuff around it, which I find fascinating.
I haven't gotten my diploma yet but since the semester just ended, I wasn't expecting anything yet. If I haven't received anything by the end of Feb then I'll start creating a fuss :] And I haven't been waiting for the diploma. If people ask I say I am finished, and I have yet to run into anyone who says "prove it!"
In the meantime, I just started doing this small certificate program through John Hopkins on data science. One of the other PMs that I'm working with (who has become a mentor/good friend) and I are doing it together. https://www.
I've also been doing a lot of reading lately. Just finished Yes Please by Amy Poehler, and I must say, Tina Fey's Bossypants (both books are along the same lines) is way better. But I think if I was ten years older with two small children, I would relate to Amy's book better. But at the same time, I love Amy's dont-take-shit-from-anyone attitude towards everything, which I feel like I possess as well - which sometimes comes across as bitchy, but I'm getting better as owning it and surrounding myself with people who dont see it that way and still love me when my bossy pants come out.
I read Yes Please for a book club I joined. I joined two girl-power book clubs and this is the first month I'm meeting with them. One is a potluck at someone's house and the other meets at a bar, so two very different settings and will probably attract different women, but I'm excited to meet the women in both.
And I read http://www.amazon.com/
I'm still feeling very disconnected but I think a lot of this has to do with the lack of routine in my life. I've always thrived on routine so not having one for this extended period of time, combined with the lack of work (I'm back down to working 20 hours again), makes me very bored and I end up just watching tv. Half the time the only reason I leave the house is bc I force myself to. Once I have a job outside of work it'll get better and I'll be interacting with more people.
Friday, January 2, 2015
I looked fuckin' hawt today
 |
So anyway, today I woke up and decided I was going to get out of the house. So I got dressed. And the outfit I put together was AWE-some. This is the first time I feel like I actually pulled off a nerdy-fashion Heather look. Jeans, tshirt, and cons are a perfectly acceptable fashion statement both in Spokane and the industry I work in. But I love me some cute shoes, so I've always had a battle of keeping it casual while still wearing 5 inch heels. And today I did it! Also, I'm really into slacks right now.
Here's what I love about this outfit:
- bitchin' shoes (Jessica Simpson makes the BEST heels in my opinion)
- Kardashian pants - casual yet sophisticated (yay for pants for women with big butts)
- nerd shirt - yeah that's a shirt that references the Voyager spacecraft
- sweater that seriously only I would wear, bc look at that awesome (most people use the word "70's" and then shudder) color palette
- also, ignore the hair. I was dumb and went to bed with it wet and reaped the consequences)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)