IT'S OFFICIAL

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.

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

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.

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”

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.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/1?utm_medium=dashboard 

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/Ceiling-Walls-leadership-career-start-corporate/dp/0967312922 which was a serious learning book but a really good read about how women aren't usually mentored regarding business and financial acumen (bc leadership workshops are built around men and men usually fall down on the communication side, which is where we women excel in) and how that makes it so we are passed up on things and how to "force" people to mentor you about these things. 

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. 

I looked fuckin' hawt today

So one of the many reasons I hate working at home is that I rarely get dressed. And what's the point in living in a city and not being able to do fashion? Literally one of the things I was excited about to move here was the fashion. My mom's words were "oh man. Jeff is going to discover your shoe hoarding ability." Which he has! And hates. But shoes are my girl obsession and I my argument is at least they're practical (ya gotta wear shoes) and I don't own 30 purses or 80 shades of brown eyeshadow.

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)