Layoff Dayoff #2 (...69)

All week my running pal Mark said we were going to "crush it" on our Saturday morning run.  This made me dread my early morning workout today...anticipating the discomfort of an uncomfortable pace.  7AM felt painfully early and 55 with no sun felt chilly.  But we did crush it...sort of...maybe not for some folks, but for me, an 8 minute pace is really very tough to sustain for 15 miles.  The rest of the day my legs felt crushed.  And the rest of me too.  But a nice kind of crushed.  It's a good exhausted feeling that makes the simplest things, like eating a good meal, having a cup of coffee, and sitting on the sofa feel far better than usual.

Do Overs (...70)

Yesterday, after 3 days of staying up until 1am, I felt frustrated with my lack of discipline.  I didn't do anything worth mentioning until 1AM, just browsing my favorite home repair and decorating blogs and reading.  Going to bed at 1am and getting up at 9am, exercising in the evening, eating late, getting to bed late...it's a cycle that doesn't work for me. I'm not naturally a night owl.  I'm an early owl.  I'm at my best if I rise at 6am, exercise, eat a big breakfast, and start on my projects.  But without an external schedule imposed upon me it's easy to stay up late.  So last night I abandoned the night owl routine, got some work done in the early evening, went to bed early, and got up at 7am.  I suspect I'll have to re-establish this schedule from time to time.  How do people who work from home full-time stay on schedule?  I suppose it takes practice and I should get a few do overs since I'm no at this game.

Another gorgeous day beckoned me to Concord for my second cookie at the Main Street Cafe (note, important new blog page Taste Testing).  This time it was oatmeal and boy oh boy...what a disappointment.  Can you tell by the look on my face?  Probably not, so I'll tell you, frankly, this cookie did not please my palette.  I don't like overly sugary cookies.  Luckily, this cookie did not taste overly sugary.  It also did not taste oatmeal-ly. Or cookie-y.  I like to taste the oatmeal, some brown sugar, a little saltiness, but this tasted like wax paper.  After an hour bike ride to get it, I was disappointed.  Luckily, I'd toted a banana in my bike shirt pocket and had that delicious treat to gratify my hunger.


A bright surprise from the cafe...the ice tea came with a pink straw!  My nieces would love this!

 

Caulking-gun Makes Caulking-fun (...71)

sandpaper, cloth, bowl of water, caulk, caulking-gun

This afternoon I did a longstanding repair job in my bathroom - filling in the cracks around the floor molding.  Anybody can do this chore, it's easy as pie and incredibly satisfying to see the clean, pretty results.  Before using caulk to do some work on my bathroom when I renovated it a year ago I didn't know that caulk is the secret to making a room look like it was finished by a professional.  It can fix a whole bunch of ratty, gappy, wonky, icky, ugly surface problems in your house.  I dig this stuff:

All you need for a little job like this is shown in the picture above: sandpaper to remove loose paint, caulk, a caulking-gun, cloth, and a bowl of water.  My method is to apply a bead of caulk along the area I want to finish, take a piece of cloth around my finger, dampen it in the bowl, and then press my finger along the caulk joint to smooth it out from one end to the other.  Once the caulk is cured and hardened, you can topcoat and it looks beau-ti-ful:

BEFORE...CRACKS

AFTER...LOVELY

Balancing Actions (...72)

I haven't been targeted in my career path thus far.  Actually, I was targeted early on.  Around age 24 I decided I wanted to work as a digital video editor.  I taught myself the software, interned, freelanced, and started working full time.  Then I changed my mind and moved into a related field, broadcast post production.  It was a good shift for me.  I liked the work, learned a lot, committed myself to the job, and got promoted.  But then a big health scare, a brain tumor, shifted my direction, or, better put, my concerns.  Work felt insignificant to me.  The product, a television show, lost its luster.  I couldn't see my work goals anymore but my personal goals came into focus.  Personal goals got most of my energy, effort, emotions, and thoughts.  Career goals suffered.  But now I want to shift my efforts.  I don't intend to drop personal goals, but I want a better balance.  I want my personal and professional goals to coincide.  So, with that in mind, this evening I  went to the Marsh’s Women’s Executive Business to Business (WEBB) Women and Wine Reception.  It was held at Brix on Broad, an impressively well stocked boutique wine shop, owned by two women in Boston.  The intent of these events is to provide networking opportunities for women in the form of interesting and educational social events.  The combo of a wine tasting, networking, and author talk is brilliant.  Talk about a good balance! 

The speaker, Pam Lassiter, gave us all a copy of her book The New Job Security.  Rather than read from her book, she offered a few bite size career questions for us to think about as we consider our future.  Her ideas were easy to swallow along with our glasses of wine, cheese, and charcuterie!

My favorites of the ideas she presented were these two:  "What do people seek you out for?" She suggested we ask ourselves.  I like this approach to thinking about career direction because everybody can come up with an answer to this.  Another tip from Pam:  "Be a jack of all trades, master of two."  This suggests that we need not neglect any of our interests. We should pursue all of them but make a few our focus.  Helpful advice for me right now as I find myself skipping around from one thing I like to do after another.  Which do I want to focus on and incorporate into my next job?  And why is this question so tough for me?

99% Lallygagging, 1% Focus (...73)

99% Lallygagging, 1% Focus...I'll hang on to that 1%.  Mental fatigue sets in pretty fast when I job search online.  I could only take so much of it today.  A few hours into work researching, I moved on to a few disruptive habits:  channel flipping (gasp!!), website surfing (not so terrible, depending on the sites, but I can quickly get lost in the NY Times Home & Garden section), and magazine reading (Fast Company and LAVA).  As well as a few calming habits:  cooking (polenta!) and exercising (killer mat workout by TA!).  Here's where the 1% focus comes in...Today I started research to prep for a meeting with a friend of mine with whom I'm working on a potential online business.  This got my full attention.  I'm so excited about having an interesting project that uses some of my skills but also provides a great deal of challenges to problem-solve and opportunities to gain experience.  I'm not sure at what time today I stopped being idle and started to zone in on this new project, but once I got going it was all I could think about.  That's a good feeling to have when it can feel like these laid off days lack order.

To Concord for Cookies (...74)

It was a gorgeous day for a bike ride!  I headed to Concord, MA where the Main Streets Cafe serves up perfect egg burritos, coffee, and soooooooo many good looking pastries that you don't know which to choose.  But I went knowing that I'd buy a cookie.  I can't get over their stacks (and I mean STACKS) of enormous Oatmeal, M&M, Chocolate Chip, Everything, and Peanut Butter cookies!  I haven't tried them all but I plan to this summer.  These cookies are only a 16 mile bike ride from my front door...and they make a much tastier mid-ride treat than an energy bar!

Hello, cookies!!!

This chest of pastries requires a longer bike ride and somebody just as hungry to share your plate...

My What's Next (...75)

A good read for anybody who's been laid off is Rob Pergoraro's blog, specifically his first post "Departure" about being let go from The Washington Post. He was the consumer technology columnist at the newspaper and left after 17 years.  He shares his thoughts on what he's grateful to have more time for now that he's unemployed.  I identify most with this line from his blog post:  "The kitchen has a stack of recipes overdue for me to try, while the rest of the house hides a long list of deferred-maintenance chores."  Another post, "What's Next?" discusses what other former columnists have moved on to in their careers and what he's contemplating now.  In this post I appreciate his list of what he would like his next job to include and why.  That's a good place for anybody to start.  I've come up with a few things so far that I want in my next job:

• A collaborative and enthusiastic work environment where personal and professional growth is supported.  This reads like a line from an employee handbook but it's what I'm looking for in a work atmosphere.  I've heard start-up company environments can be like this because the staff is specifically interested in the company's goals and has closer involvement in the company's success.
• A business focused on something with which I can personally connect.  I can easily find something in almost any job that I could get interested in but I prefer to work for a company whose product or services holds significance for me, that I can't help but be enthusiastic about. 
• It should involve web technology and social media.  I took a class last year on web development, html, and css.  Taking that class exposed me to enough web technology to help me know that I want to learn more.  I'm also eager to work someplace where I can become more familiar with social media and how it is used in business marketing and sales.
• I wouldn't mind starting my own business.  This helps me fulfill bullet point #1 and #2.  A good start.  And I could try to incorporate any of my other interests:  the web, triathlon/fitness, meal sharing (see my other blog), to name a few.

As Rob says in his blog post, "I suppose that doesn’t narrow things down all that much."  This is hard work determining what's best for what's next.  What's the best way to go about this?  I'm dying for suggestions...