Washington, you're doing it wrong

We went to the beach! Last weekend of October. You'll be SHOCKED to learn it was rainy.

M's dad rented us all an awesome base house with a killer ocean view. His family had been going here for many eons and it was cool to get to bring our kids with him. Sadly this weekend was the first available so we didn't exactly get to do it the sunny way.

But we tried!

The full day we were there it was a torrential downpour but we attempted the beach with hopes of a break. No such luck

It was pretty comical, the sand for sand castles was soaked and heavy.






Miranda was not buying it.

But we explored and did our best to enjoy the surroundings.







But the true value of the trip came from hanging out with M's family. We watched movies and colored and played Zingo.






Andrew slept in a twin bed for the first time which felt crazy.




I feel like Washingtonians are sadly under experiencing what a real beach weekend is. But they are cute for trying.

Hugh O'brian creeping me

Ok how creepy. A few hours after I posted my HOBY chant I got this text.



Computers are freaky.



Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

We are in heated agreement*

I don't know how to more enthusiastically be enthusiastic about things at work.

It's a real problem.

I'll be asked to do something and I'll say "no problem" without any amount of problem or underlying distaste for the task. Then I'll be asked again and again until I'm needlessly annoyed about being asked to do the thing but still not about the thing. But annoyed nonetheless and I worry that I also look annoyed at that point.

The culture here seems to be trending toward a level of exuberance that I'm just not cut out for and frankly isn't entirely believable to me. I've been here almost nine (nine!) years but I feel like the culture and my own personal mannerisms have diverged a bit over the past couple years.

I honestly am stumped on what to do. I try to stay genuine and positive in my comments and in many ways I'm more of a team player now than at other points in my career here. I read Shackleton's Way a few years back and it really helped me become a better employee and overall more objective about things. But it looks different on me than I think people might want to see?






nowadays this makes me the most ragey- WHO THE HELL SLIPS A P100 IN WHEN ANY DECENT PERSON EXPECTS A P200?!?!?!?

The other day I had to tell my manager "you're not taking yes for an answer." I'd just gotten super frustrated over repeatedly and (to me) good naturedly saying I'd be happy to do something. He asked enough times that I even double checked my body language and face settings but as far as I could judge they were all in line. And to clarify it was a future item- I wasn't just being asked as a way of prodding progress. It's during planning that this sort of things happens and I don't get it.

In 10th grade I attended the HOBY Youth Leadership conference and we did the following chant:
"To be enthusiastic you must act enthusiastic (repeat thrice). OH BOY! AM I ENTHUUUUSIASTIC!"

Guess it's time to channel that mantra.
Oh boy.

*9 years ago I first heard our CEO say this at a lab meeting when two people were saying the same thing differently and I loved it so much. I try to use it as often as it is relevant.

Cute kids just because

















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Test

Too many posts had gotten eaten by my old blogging app that I was ready to give up. The outcry against this so was overwhelming and 100% of my readership reached out to me to protest.

So let's try a new app.


Here's a test post.
This past weekend was planned to be really full and fun.

On Friday however we got word from daycare that M was running a temp. Michael finished up work and picked the kids up* and we snuggled our girl and went to a wait and see mode.
*this was the first time in my working parent life that I've not been the one closer to go get a sick kid. It was weird. These kids are so damn lucky to have the dad they have. Makes me pretty lucky too.

We had a movie night on Friday and kept it easy.

A rough night on Friday led to a fever free baby Saturday morning! We went for a walk to the park with our friends chalitor. And still had a happy fever-free baby.

Our big Saturday plan was the 7th annual pumpkin carving party. We all had a perfect record and it is our favorite Halloween tradition we were really hoping to get to go. So we did no preparation but decided if our baby patient had a good nap and woke up feeling good we'd all go. And we did!

Sunday Michael and I had our first show on our new season tickets to the paramount theater. It was for the Carole King musical "beautiful" (alternately titled "yep, I wrote that too"). The kids stayed with a baby sitter and that is probably another post.

Well, I've written this long ramble and it hasn't crashed!
Let's add pics.
























The plan had been that Andrew would make some monster chocolate covered pretzels but we figured if we had some sort of plague we'd keep it to ourselves

Test 2

My blogging app appears dead. 

Signing off forever.