Weekend With the Family

The DH and I had a great weekend in Boise with a bunch of my family. We flew out early Friday morning and worked most of the day in our Boise office. I got to see the digs there and meet a few new folks and say hi to some of my old friends there. That evening, we had yummy Taco Soup with Rager and Kins and their darling boys. That youngest one of theirs is quite the little monkey. At one point, after being left alone for a matter of minutes, he was on top of the gum ball machine that sits on top of a five foot bookcase. I hope he doesn't end up with too many stitches in his life, but he has no fear.

On Saturday, I ran errands with my Dad, went to Del Taco with the DH and then we all went to my cute niece's baptism. She turned eight earlier this month and her Dad baptized her and then confirmed her a member of the church. She was so cute. She wore the same dress that my mom originally made for my baptism, then both my sisters were baptized in it and now my two neices who have gotten old enough have been baptized in it. It was such a little blast from the past and she was just as cute as can be.

On Sunday, we celebrated my sister's birthday. We had to have yellow cake baked in a bowl and she likes chocolate frosting the best, so we had to get creative to figure out how to decorate the cake. Annzy hooked us up with a really cute cake on Martha Stewart's web site and we were on our way to making the cutest monkey cake you can imagine. She loved it! We had a great family dinner and then monkey cake and ice cream.

Now the DH and I have arrived back home in Seattle and are looking forward to sleeping in our own bed again.

Internet Woes

Well, this morning I got internet back at home. The support center was down over the weekend, I was on hold for over an hour on Monday with no luck, I called at 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday to find out that's when the support center closes now. Finally, this morning, I got Raj on the phone to help me. It took about 20 minutes and I'm bak online.

I've been very frustrated with AT&T DSL, but it looks like my only other really good (but expensive) choice is Comcast broadband. Word on the street is that ClearWire has too many outages, which would be worse than my current woes. I can't get Qwest or Verizon as it looks like my phone line isn't supported by either of them or I'm too far away from their office, or whatever the real reason is.

In the end, I may just be keeping AT&T anyway. No matter how frustrated they made me over the weekend, they're one of the few high-speed games in town.

If anyone has a better suggestion, I'm open to it!

No Rest for the Wicked

I sure am glad to be sleeping in my own bed, but the stars were against me this weekend. I needed to put together a flyer for Relief Society and a small justification document for our big new client over the weekend. This was in addition to the Relief Society luncheon, nephew's birthday party, and Easter dinner with the family.

On Friday evening, the internet just stopped working at our house. That meant that I had no access to the information I needed for the flyer or the justification document. I was not a happy camper, but I was sure that the AT&T DSL helpdesk would make it all right for me. I was wrong. When I called, they told me their systems were down until Monday and I could call back then.

That's when I had the mild breakdown. The DH was out putting gas in my car and delivering some Easter goodies, so he got to miss it. Lucky man. There were two other results of this news. One is the decision to quit AT&T DSL for good (after more than 15 years of loyalty) and the second was to go into work on Sunday afternoon to get caught up on those things that required internet access.

Today, it looks like things are all coming together. The justification document is being edited and I have everything I need for the Relief Society flyer. I'm also more or less done with writing the information I need for the big bid. And this evening, I'm going to the mall to sign up for Clearwire. All's well.

Dreaming of My Own Bed

I'm tired but happy. Yesterday, our client called at almost 7:00 p.m. to tell us that they had selected us as the partner for a large proposal. When 5:00 came and went and then 6:00 came and went, we weren't sure what to think, but they finally called with the good news.

That means that I have a bunch of work ahead of me to get the proposal finalized by Tuesday, but it also means that we have begun what could be a long and prosperous relationship with a large company that is new to my company. It's a pretty significant win. It was also kind of cool to be in the position of really selling what we do, so that feels pretty good right now.

Finally, I am happy because I'm flying 1st class to get home and I'll be able to sleep in my own bed tonight. I'm really looking forward to that.

Life is good!

Detroit Blues

So, I'm in Detroit right now. I'm heading home tomorrow, and can't wait to be back with the DH. I miss him when I'm away. I also had tickets to a concert in Seattle for tonight, but instead, I'm in the steal belt.

I just finished a pretty intense presentation to a prospective client and now we have to wait until the end of the day for their response to our porposal. If they accept our proposal, it means a bunch more work for me leading upt to another proposal due next week. I feel like I'm running a marathon and I only trained for a 5K.

I found out that Hilary Clinton was giving a speach in Detroit in the building down the block from where I was giving a presentation pretty much at the same time. I didn't get a crowd though. Only six people listened to my stuff. I actually would have liked to hear her and that would have made it feel like there was something really cool to do in Detroit.

Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! It's the DH's holiday, so we had to do it up right.

We put together a lovely meal of corned beef, cabbage, boiled potatoes, and soda bread. It was a meal fit for an Irish-American imigrant. We found out that no one in Ireland eats this on St. Patrick's or any other day. They're partial to pig.
We couldn't eat all of that food ourselves, so we invited over a few other couples and they enjoyed it with us. And big thanks to Lorraine for bringing the green rice krispies treats. They were squishy, marshmallowy goodness all the way.

Teased by Spring

There are so many signes of Spring right now that I'm just bursting with anticipation. The camelia bush down the street if covered with flowers. The cherry tree in our yard is just starting to blossom. We have pussy willows on the table (courtesy of the nice neighbors accross the street). And, best of all, we keep having sunny days that are startin to feel warm.

Today it was cold and this evening, cold and stormy. I know Spring is on the way, but I'm getting impatient!

Burning the Candle

It's been a long week and it looks like I may have one more in front of me. Last week I had three late nights putting together bids for potential new customers. During the day I had been dealing with all sorts of things to do with staffing, project quality, attrition, and gross prophit. I won't bore you with the details. I just want you to know that a lot has been going on.

On Friday, I was in a seminar all day on Silverlight (a new tool that Microsoft developed that completes with Adobe Flash) and also joined a sales conference call for two hours in the of the day -- skipping lunch to be on the call. The result of that call is that we passed the first gate in the sales process and I now get to go to Detroit, MI to work on the next step in the process. It's not easy to go from Seattle to Detroit, so it means being gone for basically three days.

One good thing about the folks I work with now is that I have some amazing people on staff. Although we are a bit short-handed, the hands that are on deck are willing to really put in their best all-out effort. Also, we've hired what I hope is our last project manager and he will start on April 7th. With his addition to our team, things should even out for all of us.

On top of much going on at work, church has also been a major time commitment. We had our last ward conference today, so I'm doing teaching the Releif Society lesson to all the wards as of today. We have our semi-annual Releif Society President's luncheon for the stake this coming Saturday and all I have to do for that is bring salad for a dozen ladies. Then our Women's Conference is April 12th. The preparations for that are almost complete, but I still have to put together all of the programs and print out all of the name tags and invitations. It's a lot, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In between all that, the DH and I will be going to Boise to attend my neice's baptism and then to Anchorage to celebrate the DH's son's birthday.

I think I'm looking forward to May.

Things I'm loving right now

I know it's been too long -- again -- but I'm doing the best I can right now. I'm a busy bee at work and with church obligations right now, but I still want to share some of the things I'm really enjoying right now.

• I just got Cheryl Crow's new album and love the song Peace Be Upon Us.
• Pussywillows from the nieghbors accross the street as a thank-you for the baby blanket.
• Parties for friends and the High Priest group.
• Reading magazines (like Oprah and Self) but not a book.
• Daylight savings and light on my way home from work.
• Crocus and soon-to-blossom grape hyacinth.
• Going to the gym with the DH.
• Yummy ruby-red grapefruit.

What are you enjoying these days?