Life updates

Lots of things have been swirling lately, so I'm doing a rundown on what's happening right now to clear my thoughts. Hopefully over the course of the weekend, I can actually come up with some writing on a particular topic. This will be a pretty long entry, I think.

WORK: I had a meeting on Wednesday with my boss (Linda) and my cross-site manager to discuss my job. Apparently my cross-site manager was convinced I was missing deadlines and not doing anything. Linda asked me to type up a list of everything I do, both on a regular and special project basis, and bring it with me so our cross-site manager could see how much I'm actually responsible for at the moment.

Two pages, single spaced. Approximately 80-90 things. Nah, I'm not busy. *rolls eyes*

Anyway, that meeting seemed to go well, despite the accusations that had been flying. Apparently I'm FINALLY going to have a backup admin. who will take half of the work-- namely for the Art and Photo people, leaving me to really only have to focus on design. 45 people down to 21. My job will quite honestly start feeling like a cakewalk with this.

There's also going to be a redistribution of duties and some fine-tuning on what systems are outdated now, so I can streamline my job for the rest of the time I'm here. Our cross-site manager agreed, once she saw the list, that there's no way I can keep up, and that something needs to be done to help me get back on track. It's partially my fault, but not completely-- and she's realizing that.

Good. Moving forward...

On Thursday afternoon, I met with the departmental head of Editorial Services, which focuses on copyediting and proofreading. I wanted her input on what avenues I should explore to get into editing so I can put this $100K+ Boston University journalism degree to some actual use. She gave me some very good leads-- several, in fact, although she strongly recommended taking at least a couple of courses to brush up and get the updates on current grammar and editing rules and tighten up my skills. It was an extremely helpful meeting. And while it's going to take some time to position myself in an editing job, I now have the direction to investigate. This is good. :)

So all in all, a tiring, emotionally draining, but fruitful week-- especially after how last week ended.


CATS: The kittens are doing quite well. They've had a relapse of the eye gunk and sneezing. Poor Elly's cheeks are a bit swollen. It's been two weeks since they were off the antibiotics now, and it's probable that they'll need to return to them. We have them going in for their check-up and second deworming tomorrow afternoon. Med discussions will be done. Thankfully, despite the gunk relapse, they're both running and playing like healthy kittens. So I'm not too concerned.

Oh, and both kittens sleep all night in bed with us, curled up and purring. We have a serious case of snuggle cats already. :)


HOUSE: The unstoppable rain this week has revealed a couple things to us. We do have some leaks in the garage roof, leaving us with a thin depth of standing water on the garage floor slab. There's nothing out there to really get damaged at the moment (and we don't park in the garage), so for the moment, we're not doing anything. But roof repair, at least for the garage, is moving up a bit on our timetable, I think.

After three days of shivering because of the wet, Erich and I finally figured out our furnace. Engineers we are not. But the furnace is working (now), and we're using occasional heat just to take the bite off of the chill from the dampness. Once it's warm, the house holds the heat really well, despite having no insulation.

WRITING: I still don't have a topic for NaNo this year. *sigh* Hopefully something will come to me in the next few days.

COMPUTER: Mine's still sick. I've taken over Erich's.

STITCHING: I have some SBQ's to update this weekend. Still working on the Castle, although after last week, I just haven't had the attention span to really do too much. I'm hoping to make a good push this weekend during the Pat's game.

Thus is my life at the moment.