06/06/10: My Weekend

Happy Sunday y'all!  I'm ready to get in the pool but my hubby is out doing the grocery shopping for the week and I'm done with my bit - changing the sheets and working on laundry, for a little while - so while I could head out to the pool now, I just would feel guilty so will do something else that we both see as beneficial to my journey.

That's right.  Pester y'all!

Aren't you lucky!

I have some pictures to share.

The black dog, Raider - does not like to be cuddled, held, or even remotely smothered.  She determines what is smothering and she growls to tell you it's not ok.  It's a cute kind of growl, really, not a menacing thing, but something, instead, that says "I really don't like this but I guess I gotta do what I gotta do".  The white dog, Tibby, on the other hand, loves loves loves to cuddle.  He's my baby.  Raider is my hubby's baby.  There's no lack of love for either, though, just that I had Tibby before I met my hubby and he had Raider before he met me.  So, while this pic isn't odd in that Tibby is normally in that little nook...Raider crawling into the other and staying there is very odd.  So we had to take the pic.  I didn't even hate that I was in the picture!  Not a great me - but a whole lot better than the me of this time last year!  I'll take it!!!

Yesterday was fun.  We scrubbed the grout, rocks, and tile in the pool to get off what we now know is scale.  We also now know where it was coming from (pH out of balance) and what takes it off (muriatic acid).  At least we were in the pool!  The pool looks a gazillion times better than it EVER has!  Our pool school guy gave us some inaccurate information so this scale developed pretty quickly.  And we'd gotten it off before, but not to this degree as we were told to use the wrong stuff.  And even though we got it off, it came right back.  We also did some running around and generally enjoyed our Saturday.  I know we did something else "work" related, on the house, can't remember what it was, but we both crawled in bed last night, exhausted but surprisingly energized.  We felt great and we'd gotten a lot done!

Today has been fun, too.  We have been vegetables.  We did get the gym re-organized and it looks great!  And the rest of the day will be spent in the pool or beside the pool, grilling dinner out there and all.  Oh...you'd also be enthralled to know that we inventoried our freezer.  My hubby LOVES to just go buy meat (he does almost all of the grocery shopping).  Will buy it even though we've got an entire freezer in the garage stocked full of it.  So he declares this morning, as we are compiling the grocery list and cutting coupons, that he is going to buy some chicken and what other kind of meat do I want?

(I love that our treadmill folds up...so totally makes this room doable.)

We've got chicken (shredded from a leftover whole chicken cooked in a crockpot on Friday) sitting in the fridge waiting for something to be done with it this week.  We've got an entire freezer full of "meat" in the garage - what else do you want?  Well, we need something for this week.  Yes...I know...but can't we use what we already have?

So we went out there with pen and paper in hand and pulled it all out to look and see what we had.  Turns out we have two bags of chicken breasts and 12, count them, 12 drumsticks.  We have steaks and roasts and legs and shoulders galore.  Seriously!  Can we not use this up before it goes bad before we replenish it?  I think he's now convinced...and now we have an inventory...so we can look at two pieces of paper instead of having to take everything off, undoubtedly, the wrong shelf, to just see what we even have.  I hope we can cut down on the meat purchasing for a little while...especially given that...I can barely eat!

I am loving this.  I'm not perfect...I think one more fill is going to make a great difference in how long the full factor lasts...but my first bite or two is generally feeling like it's closed off before it eventually wanders down the pipes and I can proceed with eating.  And this closed off feeling is also translating into chew chew chew chew chew!  I have noticed a direct correlation between how much saliva gets into the food and how this "closed off feeling" feels.

I did listen to y'all that have gone before me...but I had to figure it out for myself.  :)

So onto the bad news.  I am starting my next class tomorrow.  I don't know if you remember, but here's the deal.

I work for a company (a fantastic wonderful company with the best training program in the industry) that does not think training is a joke.  They take it so seriously, in fact, that it takes a minimum of three years to get out of it.  And once people "graduate" they generally get job offers from competitors because people that finish this program are deemed both intelligent and driven.

I am in year two of three.  My three is up in November.  I have actually been working in my field for five years and was hired (a head hunter came after me) away from my previous employer to work for this fabulous wonderful company.  Because of that prior experience, I started in the middle...but seniority means that I don't get to take courses until those hired before me and ready get to them, at least within my group.  So here I am...I've been ready to take these classes for what feels like eons...but I'm just getting to them.  Of course, in the middle of my training, they rewrote the curriculum and so those of us in my paygrade have had to sit and wait for classes as, being the final phase meant it was also the last to get rewritten.

So fast forward to this year.  I was finally able to register for courses.  There are four courses in this project, a live project "that is of financial benefit to the company" - which can mean, I handle a real life project as a project leader even though I'm not going to be a project leader until I finish the training program, or else that I develop a project of my own, propose said project - to prove how it is financially beneficial and what it can mean for long term financial benefits, then once said project is approved, carry it out, then finally, defend my project (and results) to all the regional VP's and segment CEO as well as local management.  (That is why this is seen as "THE" training program in the industry - it's technically harder than a MS thesis defense - and this has been declared by many with their MS's in Geophysics.) 

Anywho, one class was the first week in May.  One class was for the second week of July.  The third class was originally for the third and fourth week of July but while I was out after surgery, my registration was moved to the last week of August and the first week of September.  And finally, my fourth and last course was in September as well.  Following successfully completing all these courses, then I have to do my project, a "Career Orientation Review", a review in which I tell them what I see doing with the rest of my career - line management, training, sales, exactly what I'm already doing, switching to a new segment, etc.  I also have to defend my project and impress the brass.

Well.  I'm never ok with just doing what I'm told.  I have to find what works for me.  I've been like that my entire life.  And it leads to interesting things.  I was not ok, for example, with going to college because 'mommie and daddy said so'.  So I joined the Navy to see the world, to grow up, and to figure it out.  I did figure out why college was important - and that decision led to me having to pay for college all by myself.  I'm glad I did - I think you value college more when you know why you're there and it's completely on you to get through it.  That's not always the case, but it certainly was for me.

So, back to the story, I have been periodically going into our online training system progress tracker and looking at class availability.  Always wanting more, I discovered just this week that the next two courses had availability this month.  One course, one week long, starts Monday.  The third course, two weeks long, starts the following Monday.  So I march over to my Project Leader and say "blah blah blah" and he's like "what, there are seats available?"  So he goes to his boss and says "blah blah blah" and she's like "what, there are seats available?"  So they go to the team manger.  Same thing.  The team manager then goes to the center manager - the highest of the high before you get into regional management.  And he says "WHAT?"  They spent the rest of Tues, Weds and Thurs trying to figure out how this happened.  There should be no seats available, this means people are dropping out.  This means wasted resources cause these classes get paid for regardless of whether they are full.  What's worse, because of the rewriting of the curriculum, this also means the backlog just grew.  Not everyone is like me...I have no vacation planned, nothing planned at work, and no reason not to just drop everything and be able to go.  Most people don't have that situation.

So...finally...after keeping me in the loop about who was talking to whom...and thanking me profusely for catching this...Friday...at 3pm...I was told I could go!

This week should be reasonable.  I think I can come home and at least read blogs.  Please don't expect too many comments out of me, though, I'm sorry to say.  I'll try and do my best but I'll be happy if I can just keep up!

The class after this week, though...I expect to fully drop off the radar.  I will have to do a "turkey shoot" - a project in which I'm given data to process.  They have already processed this data and have determined the best algorithms and sequences to use and it's on me to match my data to theirs.  It's very doable and very ok...but I am given 2 weeks to do a 6 week project.  From the people that have gone before me, it sounds as though 12 hour days are a distinct possibility as will be working weekends.  It's not an option to fail or be subpar as that can mean I'm fired.  We'll see how that goes but I don't expect to be blogging much at all - nor do I expect to be reading.

I will miss you, that's for sure.  I will miss all of this and, to be honest, I'm not looking forward to catching back up - I just got myself caught up last week!  And that was from the class I took at the beginning of May.  I gotta do what I gotta do, though.

And that's what I know.

I hope y'all had a fabulous weekend!  I sure did!!!