4 Days off

It has been a wonderful Thanksgiving long weekend. B was home on Tuesday night, her Lexington friends came around that night and the following night and a friend from Amherst came by yesterday and spent last night with us. They just departed on their way back to Amherst, with the bunnies who also spent the long weekend with us.

The nicest part was that we had very little planned, did not travel and the entire holiday was very low-key. Don't get me wrong. I always miss my family on the holidays if I am not with them. When you grow up with 6 siblings, then holidays are LOTS of family around. I did connect with most family on Thursday and the remaining ones on Friday so at least I had contact.. .

I knit a lot over the last 4 days. B reminded me that I promised her roommate a pair of socks, and those are nearly finished. And I am knitting on a BEAUTIFUL sweater for myself. Guess what the colors are? Pink, orange and dark orange.

I made a to-do list of projects that I want to finish for Christmas. A few pairs of socks, a few bracelets of beads and some felted slippers. I always have too many projects planned, but you do what you can do. N'est ce pas?

So, because I love my job, I don't have that Sunday night misery going on and feel really rested.

There was not enough playing Settlers over the 4 days. There are only a few Russell family members who are as addicted as I am and one of those is coming for Christmas.

Onto the next long weekend of a holiday and try to keep that peace and serenity as we approach the commercial holiday of the year. We have scaled back even further this year, and with George and Judy are just doing our Chritmas stockings. As Judy says "You can fit some really nice things in a stocking."

Hilary - electing a woman president?

At dinner last night with 2 friends, K and K, we talked about Hilary. The conversation started when K. asked why if the female population is 52%, we seem to not be able to elect a woman president. I must admit that K and K have thought a lot more about this than I have so I absorbed a lot more than I contributed. Most intriguing for me was to discuss some of Hilary's actions during the 8 years of the Clinton administration. They proposed Health Care reform and appointed her to run it, but not much happened. When the Monica stuff was happening, she must have been very humiliated, BUT she stayed with him.

I think she ran a horrible campaign and was too cocky. Apparently she spent a lot of her money in the beginning expecting to be the leader.

Face it, Obama ran an EXCELLENT campaign, and had incredible organization (Thank you brother George and friend Kathy and friend Ben, and every one else who organized, called rang doorbells and helped elect him). Would you guys have done the same for Hilary?

So either, this was the wrong year to try to run, or we might have trouble ever electing a woman. As a woman I hope in my lifetime to see a woman president for my daughter and grand daughter.

Coming home for Thanksgiving

In talking with college age parents, and a lot of first years, everyone is exicted that their kids are coming home. I am one of those who is excited that my kid is coming home for Thanksgiving; a second year.

It brought me back to when I came home from College, all 17 miles. By Thanksgiving I had just gotten into a pattern and a groove. The trip home disrupted that pattern although I was glad to be going home. I had a lot of studying to do, so I took books home and with all good intentions tried to study, but too many distractions. My younger siblings were really glad to see me, and I was glad to see them. My parents were also glad to see me, the house was full again.

Some years we traveled to MacLean to visit Mama, but most years we stayed in Brandon. It was usually a really nice break before the sprint to the end of exams.

Thanksgiving is a pretty uncharged holiday. The spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving prevail.

We are "coming" home for Thanksgiving, meaning we are sitting tight in Lexington. We have an invitation to join a family for THE MEAL, which means we don't have to do a ton of work.

A few years ago, we had a family reunion at Stowe Flake and most of the family was there. Meg first met a lot of the family during that weekend. That was a great Thanksgiving memory, along with the others from prior years.

I am glad to be "coming" home for Thanksgiving, and glad she is coming home.

New Recipe - Carmelized Onion Risotto Pie

We are in Vermont for the weekend and have friends coming to visit. I made an onion pie recently and in surfing the web I found another recipe for onion pie that I wanted to try. I just finished making it, all ready for the oven and Coniston smells really wonderful right now. Onions, cheese, wine. I really love trying new recipes and this is the prefect place to try new ones because it is so relaxing. It reminded me of when I first started cooking in my first house and inviting people over. I always made spaghetti and when Charles remarked on that I branched out the the next time he came to visit. I made spaghetti pit. I thought that was different enough from regular spaghetti. So now I am on onion pies.

At work on Friday we were standing around talking about cooking. We decided to share our favorite recipes to add a bit of inspiration to our meals. I do sometimes get stuck and cannot figure out what to make for dinner. It would be so easy to open my notebook of recipes but sometimes there is nothing there I want to make. However, this week I made 2 recipes from there that I have never made, a cheese soup from Peg and a lentil soup from Marilin.

So far today, I have left the house twice, to take Qammi out and to go see if there was lots of smoke coming out of the chimney. It is almost noon and the other things I have done today are:

• make 2 cups of coffee
• bath
• Knit my new project which I love
• reading
• stoking the fire
• sitting on the couch
• listen to Car Talk and Wait Wait Don't tell me

I am pretty spoiled I must admit to have this wonderful place to relax in. It brings out the best in me and is a wonderful recharging place.

I think the pie will be a success. It certainly smells and looks good. It might become another page in my recipe notebook for inspiration when I cannot think of something to make for dinner.

Retiring to Vermont - Yes I have spent a full winter there

With the purchase of Coniston in Vermont more than a few people have asked "But, have you spent a full winter there yet?". I looked at the first few people with a questioning look, like "What do you mean have I spent a full winter there yet?" I think even my lovely husband has said "But we have not spent a winter there yet". In conversation with my friend Cindy we talked about the fact that some people retire to Florida or North Carolina and some people retire to Vermont. It is a very good thing that we are wired differently otherwise we would all be retiring to the same place and be on top of each other.

So yes, I have spent 22 years of my life living in a wintry climate, Colorado and Vermont. I love the snow, I love being snowed in, and blizzards. It might explain why at the first blizzard I get out in the car and drive in it. I took both of my kids out snow driving when they first got their licenses, so they would know how to drive in the snow. So that part of Vermont is clear, I love snow and driving in it, and yes I have spent 22 years in that kind of climate.

Now on to mud season. This morning I was thinking about it and kids love mud. They love to walk in it, get really dirty and squishy. Well maybe not all kids, but this kid does. As long as you can clean up and have the right boots mud season is tolerable. We looked at Coniston for the first time in March, during mud season. We could not even see the driveway for the mud, and we will made an offer a few days later. So, I don't mind mud season, because it ends and then the glorious spring and summer and fall arrive.

As long as we have heat, and layers, and snow shoes, and wood stoves and our Channel 1 then yes, I can spend a winter there.

It is a very good thing that we are all different. I would never be as excited about a sandy beach as a snow bank. If they could only invent a way to play golf in the snow then it would be paradise, this "Vermont in Winter" thing.

Yoga, Yoga, Yoga

For a variety of reasons, I have not been to yoga in months. Don't ask me why just rest assured that the rationales were pretty ridiculous. So Saturday morning, we are in Lexington and I trek to the YMCA for a yoga class and this morning I headed out for my regular 7:20am class. I don't forget how good I feel after yoga in the months that I don't go.

It helps center me, it helps keep me flexible, it stretches out the muscles that I am building by weight lifting and the muscles that are sore from other exercising.

Just like anything else it is a habit and it is also a habit to not go.

So, unless there is a really good reason I am going to return to Tues and Thur 7:20 am classes and 9am Sat when I am in Lexington. I am also going to try to find a studio in Vermont so I can get to a class on the weekends that we are at Coniston.

My blogging has changed

OK, when I started this blog, it was my only social media, it was the only way I was communicating to anyone who happened upon this url, about what I was thinking and what I was doing. It was the only place I posted "public" pictures.

Then, I discovered Facebook. Yeah, Yeah, it is almost 2 years since I discovered Facebook but only in the last 5-6 months have I really been using it a lot. Go to my facebook account, friend me and see how much I have posted. If you really want to know what I am up to in small bites, Facebook is the source. If you want to know what I am thinking about more deeply my blog is the source.

It is funny to talk to adults about Facebook. Some look at me like I have 2 heads, when I tell them I have a facebook account. Others shyly say "me too".

OK, so about 6 months ago, Twitter entered my computer. I can update my Facebook status from Twitter. I can use my mobile phone to update twitter and Facebook. I just discovered that Plaxo has my facebook updates. So I have resisted using Twitter a lot, since I really want one place to update but I have 2 now. So for the immediate future, Facebook for small sound bites, my blog for longer maybe not deeper thoughts.

I am contemplating not having a Holiday letter and picture collage for the second year in a row. If you want to know what I have been up to for the last year, read this blog and go to my Facebook account. Maybe we will do a picture collage and post it here and there.

Change is hard, maybe Twitter will become indispensable to me . . . but not today. Go to Facebook for now.

Intuit - Great Place to Work - Chapter 200

Ok, so after my crazy day yesterday, see previous post I am having a pretty relaxing day today.

Our Site leader sent an email out to the site yesterday alerting them that we are #22 on the Globe 100 Top Places to work. At 5:22 am our CEO sent an email congratulating us. My HR Leader sent an email last night "YEAH WALTHAM", and he forwarded it to his peers in HR. I just got the latest, "Congratulations Sally!".

Awards like this are to be celebrated, from all levels of the organization, but at Intuit it feels so genuine. It is not just going through the motions. Even in the craziest of times we stop and recognize and celebrate, and we mean it.

Don't get me wrong, I have had to deal with a few messy situations today as well, but somehow when there is genuine recognition and support it makes the messy ones easier.

I am going to have a very hard time ever leaving here, unless I can find the same kind of environment.

Yes, we are a great place to work, and need to step back occasionally and bask in the recognition.

A Day in the Life of ME

I just scanned my Inbox for today and realized that this is my life, although today seemed a bit more extreme than normal. This is only my business email Inbox, to say nothing of my personal email Inbox. I try to keep the 2 separate.

Here Goes my day:

• Because we drove down from Vermont my 9:30am meeting was 1/2 on the phone and 1/2 live. We covered over 10 agenda items at this meetings.
• Our company placed #22 on the Boston Globe Top Places to work so there were details today that I handled around that
• An employee only got 1/10 of his paycheck and I had to help him trace that down
• 3 VPs are visiting from Mountain View this week, so those logistics were discussed
• We organized an ice cream social to celebrate the Boston Globe award, and we needed to make sure that did not collide with the 3 VP meetings
• We ordered prizes for the Christmas party
• I was on a phone call for 90 minutes with all the other HR people who support Marketing
• I checked to make sure our quarter mobility data was correct
• An employee stopped by dissatisfied with his role
• We checked and some of the organizational data for our Annual Employee Survey, which started today, could have been confusing, so we try to sort that out
• blah, blah, blah

My point is that some days are very predictable and steady and I can actually tell you what I will be working on and some are like today where a lot of my day was eaten up my unpredictable stuff.

I should plan for the unpredictable ones, which I guess would not make them unpredictable . . .

It does not help that I could not sleep last night and when the alarm went off at 5am, I said "Well that is not good news!"

I love my job, and thrive on days like today because I can handle this many things at once without letting any of the BIG ONES drop to the floor. I will sleep well tonight.

Post Election thoughts

And this is why I love my husband, he wrote this email on November 5th to our kids:

"Crick, B,
1. I'm starting my citizenship papers tonight, since a pretty good number of you Americans have fended off what was starting to look like a fundamentalist Christian government.
2. That's largely due to a large number of young voters like you coming forward to take the country in a new direction and that can only bode well for future elections. Those over 64 are one of the few demographics that stuck with McCain and they will start to die off with ever increasing frequency. You young folks will shift the balance if you stick with it.
3. Just in time, we are going to have a president who can restock the Supreme Court with younger progressive judges to replace the older ones who will retire (as they surely will during his first term). With any luck he may need to replace one of the older judges of the opposing persuasion.
4. The resounding victory has given him some pretty good coat tails, that leaves other legislators indebted to him somewhat, while they helped sweep others out of power. So all of his initiatives should have a "relatively" easy passage.
5. I will be able to listen to a presidential State of the Union, or other public message without cringing or being embarrassed.
6. I can look forward to:
*A better Supreme Court
*An economic fix to our current problems, based in reality, Recognizing that a huge deficit means me and my older compatriots are passing on our debts to you two and others of your age group
*A stimulus package that shifts large parts of the economy towards addressing the crisis of climate change and rotting infrastructure
*A healthcare system that becomes a civic right rather than a profit center
*Civil discourse within our country, strong accords with our partners overseas, and even a dialogue with those who the current administration has demonized

Of course its not all a rosy picture, but I'll save that for after the inauguration speech, when its clearer what "change" #44 is talking about.

With love - Rod, Dad "

I am also attaching a youtube video that was taken at B's college after the election winner was announced (the screaming OMG is my daughter, honestly she makes me so proud):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pe_aI7bSK4

My most pressing thoughts right now are how we make sure Obama is successful. We were all with him all along the way and supporting him so we cannot let our foot off the pedal now. We have to act and press on to make sure we overcome and win.

This is an amazing time, and a scary time. The alternative to Obama would have been a lot more scary.

Press on . . .

Tentative BUT Excited

OK, no more late night pundits, no more SNL skits, today is the day.

Being a Boston sports fan, I am nervous, and tentative and after 2000 and 2004 anything can happen. Nonetheless I am very excited about voting this morning at 7:15 and waiting in a 20 minute line to vote. I have never had to wait to vote before . . .

This could be a very exciting evening. I can only imagine what the Obama household must be like. I read an article online today about what it will be like to have 2 young girls running around in the White House.

I have probably jinxed everything now by writing about it, kind of like a no hitter. Don't tell anyone but I am very excited about TODAY and this election

Mass MoCA

This weekend we went with some All Star II friends to the Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA. Go if you are in the area. We had a docent which is really the only way to visit I think. Without the docent I would have just walked by many of the installed art, without considering many of the aspects and details that the guide pointed out.

The museum is an abandoned mill building. Don't you love what is being done with old mill buildings?

Because of the wall space, they are able to install really BIG pieces of art. I realized as we were on the tour, that I really like museums like this. I am OK with walking through salons that have "Classic" art, but I like better modern artists.

There were some marble sculptures of freeway intersections in LA with all of the trees, houses and cars carved in incredible detail. There some biospheres, where you put your head up inside of the greenery. There was an installation of what looked like jersey barriers gone wrong. In fact they had to reinforce the floor to put this installation in.

Anyway, it was a great weekend with the past chairs of All Star II. Since we are directors of our conference, we HAVE to meet to do business. It really is a chance to see a subset of our Star community another time during the year and to catch up on everybodys' lives.

It was a beautiful drive back from the Berkshires, and now I am sitting on the couch taking advantage of that extra hour we got today.