One More Detour on the Writing Road

God, it's gloomy. That perfect combination of 40s, drizzle, and patchy fog that makes you want to curl up by a fire with hot chocolate and the remote.

And maybe a shirtless Alan Rickman (page down).

But I digress.

Tomorrow is a holiday at the day job since New Year's Day falls on a Saturday. After that, I am continuing my tradition of burning through my vacation by taking off the first week of the year. But, I have things that need doing so I have no choice.

Only a scant handful of people at work today. I caught up on emails and compiled my timesheets and signed up for training. By the time I return, things will have returned to their usual level of *GAH!*

In other news, I found Gaby's ribbons in the snow today. She lost them the day after Christmas, and I figured they would turn up eventually. And so they did, somewhat the worse for wear, wet with snowmelt, the ends frayed.

Arrived at the dayjob desk this morning to find a box of candy from a coworker. We worked on a challenging project this year, and it was her way of saying thank you. Milk chocolate turtles--yum.

As fate would have it, I have a lunchtime appointment with the orthodontist. Bit down on a nut-filled cookie at just the wrong angle, and loosened my permanent retainer. I fear a lifetime filled with such appointments--the retainer is behind my lower front teeth, and biting into things is what those teeth do. But if they remove the retainer, the teeth could cross over one another--fixing that was why I had the thing put in in the first place.

It's quiet here. Tomorrow will be worse. Friday will be the dead zone. Then I'm off until 2 January, which will be grand.

Had one of those mornings at the day job where it all went ziiiiippy and before I knew it, it was well after 11am and I got some lunch and stated clicking around online back and forth back and forth and I need to just stop and take a deep breath and slooooooooow dooooooown...

Working on performance self-evaluations for the day job, one of my least favorite things. They're due tomorrow, so I'll be working on mine tonight after KO. If I'm good and finish quickly, I can play with the GIDEON outline.

Had a two-day course in career/performance coaching last week. For anyone else who's done these things at work, my overall style is Energizer/Amiable/Mediator, which means I'm good with people, but not much of a driver for results. Myers-Briggs came up, of course, and the trainer recommended a Personal Style Inventory test, which measures the shape of your preferred personality. I bought one, just because you can never take too many personality tests. Actually, I bought 5, because that's the smallest set available. Anyway, if I have time this weekend, I'll sit down with it and see what it tells me. My M-B seems to fluctuate--the I is set in stone, but everything else can vary. Maybe this will, too.

Altoids offers dark chocolate coated cinnamon and peppermint pieces. Just thought I'd share. The peppermint are pretty good.

Came in this morning to discover that I had forgotten that before I left on vacation, I was supposed to prep some PP slides for a presentation. To take place this morning.

Luckily, the meeting that had been scheduled prior to the one requiring said presentation was cancelled. And after going over the draft presentation with my co-presenter--yep, I let down two, two, two people for the price of one--it turned out that I only needed to prep two slides, which I was able to pull from another presentation.

So, crisis averted. But it did give me a chance to slam bag and gloves on my desk and ask the universe why I hadn't been born independently wealthy.

I feel as though I've been gone for months.

In other news, I am wearing a pair of slacks that did not fit me a month ago. I need to check out the ellipticals at the nearby fitness center, because my weight has yo-yo'd my entire adult life and I really don't want this to be the peak in another backslide.

...and cubeland was dead...

Honestly, if we have 10% of the usual headcount, it's a lot.

According to the Cafeteria Lady, it'll likely pick up on Wednesday/Thursday, then die back down on Friday when folks pull out their last vacation day for a four-day New Years weekend.

Taking a break. Veggie chili for lunch. Then it's back to it.

It's nice when the phone doesn't ring. No one popping their head in my cube every 15 minutes to ask a question.

...and all through the cube farm
a creature stirred here and there
because they blew through their vacation too damned early.

Ok, so it doesn't rhyme.

There are about 4 folks in the office so far. Can you say quiet?

OMG, the dreariness. Rain yesterday, all night, and still. Supposed to continue into the afternoon. The backyard is flooded and the clouds are low and there's fog. Most un-holiday.

Oh well, back to it...