Working From Home: Awkward Moment

Working from home certainly has it benefits.Like the best commute in the world. The dress code that consists of whatever comfortable items I want. A fridge, Brita, and snacks I don't have to worry about being clean or eaten by someone else. No shoes required. Multiple work spaces. And simple pleasures like a candle on a desk.

One of the drawbacks...the comforts of home and all the things that come with it. 

Let me explain. I am on the phone for approximately 3-6 hours a day depending on the day of the week.

My job is basically this and this mushed together...I kid you not. 3-6 hours a day of that. Yup. 

So I am on one of my many phone calls and out of the corner of my eye I spy a wiggly, creepy, crawly, icky thing scurrying across my wall. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Now normally, you tolerate it, keep one eye on it and then wait for an appropriate time to kill the sucker. 

Except this foul creature was looking awfully close to scuttling down the wall and IN TO MY BED.

Yup. Nope. Not Ok.

So I asked if I could put the call on hold for one moment. Pilfer through my closet and find a shoe, drag my night stand over to give me a leg up to the height of the scum sucked and then beat the crap out of the wall and the bug. 

There may or may not been a few $!#*&! going on as well, because that guy was BIG! and FAST! Yikes.

After rendering him immobile and deader than a doornail. I go back to my desk pick up my headset...flip the phone back on, and resume the call. 

The other end of the line.....was silent. Until..."Are you ok?"

oooooohhhhhhhhh no. 

"Oh my, you could hear that."

"Ummm, yes."

"Oh goodness, yes I am fine, there was errrrrr a.....well there was a bug...and I errrrr.... killed it"

Unstoppable laughter. 

So we all had a good laugh. I hung my head in embarrassment and cringed as I knew the bottom of my shoe would need to be cleaned. 

Working from home>Working from an office (even if there are bugs)

The Great Expectations

I had grand ideas for 25 was supposed to hold. It felt like a pivotal year when I thought about growing up. I suppose we each have the years that we place some sort of arbitrary value or weight on. For me it was 16, 21 and then 25. 

I honestly hardly remember turning 16 or what my expectations were about that year of my life. I do know I was awkward, painfully shy, and brainwashed by a bunch of Disney movies that had me thinking that I new Jeep, parties, and a magical romance was in my immediate future. 

anyone? anyone else remember this?

Lucky me, I never got mistaken for a famous pop princess, or had my best friend confess undying love. Alas.

Expectations for 21 were pretty shallow and predictable. By the standards of what I expected and what occurred-- pretty spot on. A fantastic display if expectations and reality that year. Granted, when you are in college, living with your sorority sisters, and just about to finish your final ten weeks of college- life is pretty stinkin' great. Luckily, that "mind eraser" beverage I down around 1:30am on my birthday was temporary in nature. Ha!

Twenty Five was the year of the "adult". With high hopes, and a head filled with anticipation and expectation, it was easy to see how what I had thought, and what was real- were way way way off. I didn't have a nice wardrobe, or piles of heels. No tiny humans, no house, no new car, and I certainly didn't read the paper with any regularity! 

After I grieved, mourned, accepted, and moved on, 26 and 27 flew by with little thought, little expectation and no comparison to what I thought, and what was real. 

Now I am 39 days out from facing 28 head on, and with a level of confidence that is foreign to me- I can say I am having a mini-freak out. Talk about expectation and anticipation! 

I mean, surely I was supposed to have the "4 D's" checked off at this point?!? Wrong. As of right now, I have a dishwasher, that's it. No Dog, no Dryer, and certainly no Diamond. Not to get all serious and emotional, but holy lord does that freak me out. I'm leaning on my crutch of humor right now to joke about my wrinkles, quickly dwindling egg count, and being in a nursing home when my kids go to college. Which is all just a very clever way to cover up the fact that I am feeling like I may just be one of those people who doesn't get married, or have kids and starts dressing her dogs like children so she can buy cute clothes. It's a tad bit terrifying (and a dash of mortifying as well). It is all in my head- thank goodness, making it easy to remind myself that everyone build up expectations and time lines for themselves and I am not the first, nor last to have to throw my timeline completely out the window and remember that I am ok, and that what comes, is what is right.

via

With 39 days left on the clock, I am trying to remember it is normal to let go of expectation and accept your own personal truth. I may need a few bottles of wine and my humor crutch to get through it, but once on the other side, I am sure it will all be just fine. 

These Are Some of My Favorite Things

♥ I admit that I actually really love bull riding. Even more than cheering for the riders, I really like to cheer for the bulls too. If a bull could win an Olympic medal, this one would have won several golds. 

♥ No arguing with my desire to move. I clearly have my priorities and preferences on point. 

♥ Clearly talent runs in this family. Love this delicate and affordable jewelry. 

♥ I can't tear my eyes away from these beauties. Get on my feet now! I'll take these too. 

♥ Some inspiration for some baking. Not only have I not been blogging, I haven't been baking either. Adult life is hard. 

♥One of my best friend sent this article to me, and it is the truth. Even more truthful...I have those friends. 

♥ My least favorite time of the year in DC is upon us (basically from April-October I HATE living here even more than normal), but perhaps we will get one more chilly evening where I could make this.

Ruining the Moment- Put Down Your Phone

Here I am. Back up on my soap box of the-world-needs-more-human-interaction-and-less-time-where-we-sit-next-to-each-other-playing-iphone. Yes...another one of those posts.

Just like my rational disdain for aspects of DC (or all of DC...) I kid. Wait. No, no I don't kid- I hate DC. I have a truly massive issue with the amount of time people are glued to their phones. PARTICULARLY when it means you are sacrificing quality time with moi to be tied up in some app or article you are reading.

My first real rant on this was prompted after reading Jenni's words from Story of My Life. I was hell bent determined to be a focused, thoughtful, and present friend/girlfriend/daughter/sister/etc. and make sure I wasn't making someone feel inadequate by keeping one hand on my phone at all times. Granted, I have my phases of addiction, but I feel like I have made a concerted effort to be present. To engage. To concentrate on making my company feel valued.

So what do you do when the favor isn't returned? I have heard all sorts of suggestions:

- Walk away from the situation until they realize they are bring rude.
- Have rules that you articulate clearly prior to hanging out/having dinner/shopping etc.
- Have certain "phone free" areas. (i.e. people can't use their phones in the living room, etc)

But none of these will make someone else prioritize giving you their undivided attention. So what do you doooo?

Even worse... what do you do when someone ruins a moment.

There you are. You just shared a joke. A hilarious moment together. A heartfelt conversation. Or took in the most breathtaking sunset.

Next thing you know. The joke is tweeted, the funny photo is posted on Facebook. The heartfelt conversation is brought to a premature end. And the sunset is on Instagram.

Moment Ruined. Buzz Kill.

It makes me livid. It makes me wonder why sharing that moment, or that joke, or whatever, isn't enough to just share it with me.

What do you do with these situations? They seem like near impossible situations to negotiate on, and frequently cause a lot of friction and tension. Is this is a if you can't beat em' join em' situation?

A New Phone & How Sophisticated Verizon Is

That epic fail adventure, where I accomplished approximately 15% of what I had hoped and never got that car wash, also included a detour to the Verizon store since there was one in the mall. I have been having issues with my iphone dying after hardly any use, and dying almost instantly if I take it out of my pocket for two seconds when skiing. I was told that cold weather affected their batteries, and that it probably wasn't the phone and there wasn't much I could do. Deciding to try again, I explained my conundrum to another customer service person (who was actually very pleasant and nice) to which she ran a very technical test to determine if I was having battery issues.

She used my phone to call her phone, and then we proceeded to let it sit for ten minutes to see if the battery dropped between 6-10%. 

Like I said....very technical. Sigh. 

You can probably tell how this ended up. My phone, according to this test, was "fine". However, they recommended I take it to the Apple store and they could run a true diagnostic. *Slaps forehead*.

Running out of steam after that disastrous errand trip, it has taken me awhile to make plans to get it into a store. This last weekend, I was sipping some coffee at a little shop near our apartment, and decided I needed to get my ipad in to have the home button looked at, and could then take my phone in too. 

Low and behold. Apple could run a real test and what did they find? 

Oh just that my battery has failed in my iphone. Ha! Haha! Ha! Verizon. 

Back to a Verizon store- armed with my "doctors note" from the genius bar, stating that my phone was on its last legs. Naturally, Verizon apologized profusely, said they were so sorry I had to go through all that trouble, whipped out a brand new iphone, and sent me on my merry little way. 

hahahahahahaha.

Not exactly.

After a 45 minute wait. I was so lucky as to have to explain this whole situation about five times to the Verizon customer service person, who tried to send a replacement phone to my parents address, ordered the wrong color, and also could not understand for the life of them why I wouldn't have just had apple fix my phone. Maybe because I have an issuance policy with YOU and not apple. 

Needless to say, after a lot of time. I just opened up my new-to-me iphone that hopefully has a much better battery situation going on. 

Wish me luck!