It's all good so far

My Saturday morning is underway. The morning rituals are mostly complete. Paper read, email checked, RSS read, and the dogs walked. Now it’s time to enjoy the second cup of coffee and get the entry done.

This morning’s email has a job listing that appears to b a combination of what I have done and where I woulda like it go with my career. I will be crafting a response and seeing about a reference. My contact does not know my professional skill set but has recently held the same lead volunteer position that I have held and knows what it takes to do that job.

There are still some odds and ends of stuff I need to do before the work comes to be full time. In addition to helping with the move, I still need to complete the data entry project and get some of our own home organization done. It is coming together.

The daughter is home and she and the wife are starting the great clean out. I will be drafted to assist tomorrow, but today is mine to continue with the job search and the data entry.

Did an inventory yesterday at the scout office and it is obvious that we need to draw down inventory or get more folks through the program. I am not sure why we are not seeing better participation. We will continue to focus on the quality of the experience and see if the numbers come back.

A bit of change for a Thursday morning. I am not normally a cafe blogger. My data entry time is at my desk before I get the morning office routine started. I do use the Day One journal to write the draft which is then copied into WordPress, reviewed and published.

It’s valentines day, and my dear wife suggested the breakfast date be moved up from the traditional Saturday morning to today. Right now the schedule allows it. Saturday will be a pruning and moving day as we pare down the in-laws house. That will take a lot of our Saturday and into next week. Our guest room will be stacked as storage with the things that are still to e preserved while other items will go to consignment of good will upon sale of the house.

I had a good lunch meeting yesterday with a former boss. It has been 13 years since I worked with him, but he is willing to be an introduction and reference to his company. His group does have growth planned this year so we will see if the timing works. It seems that all of the former supervisors have been more than willing to provide a good reference. It is very reassuring thing to hear that I do good work.

We made it to Ash Wednesday service. Fr. Paul’s homily was inspiring. Lent is a season of reflection. Do our actions in private reflect our public persona? I know that this is a failing for me. Just look at my posts about dealing with those poor souls on the support end of the phone that I have been dealing with. They can’t help the first slight – having customers having to deal with the computer operator before they get a human.

It’s not their fault that they are limited to a prescribed script of actions and responses or that the mediocre 5 to 7 business day turnaround does have an actual impact on their customer. It’s not their fault that their management will continue to cut cost and customer service to the non assertive sheep.

I vow this Lent to be more sympathetic and less caustic when dealing with these people. I know that we still need to be assertive but I shall remember that it is another child of God on the other end of the phone.

I missed one. I have been trying to get an entry done everyday but yesterday was busy and I did not get to it. We even had an earlier start to the morning but between getting a detailed on application done and doing some car shopping the day got away from me.

One accomplishment yesterday was getting the floor plan done for the in-laws new place. Using freeware and measurements Sandra & I did the other day, I was able to sketch out the suite. We also had measurements of the furniture they want to take and I was able to “furnish” their place, fitting in the things they have agreed they want to take.

Imagine shrinking your life down to approximately 400 square feet and taking the items that are physically and emotionally required to sustain a quality of life you would enjoy for a number of years.

While we are living as weekday empty nesters, we have three rooms in our house that we are not using. So we could easily eliminate those. This leaves the master bedroom, master bath, two large closets, linen & hall closets. Our kitchen could shrink. We could do without the dining room. But I look at my office, three full book cases, the desk, that credenza, the filing cabinet, printer stand. There is a lot that would either need to be reduced or relocated to a different office.

We have a ways to go before we look at reducing our lives to 400 square feet. But this is a good drill, a chance for us to evaluate what we have now and it’s relative importance to what we really need.