happy earth day

Today is earth day and unfortunately I need to be doing much more for our environment. There were several articles on things you could do to help out the environment but not many of them held much appeal. Here are some of the suggestions:

1. Taking shorter showers seemed to be on all the lists but I had our bathrooms remodeled and added 2 large shower heads and body sprays in our master bath. No way do I want to get out of my shower now in the recommended 2-5 minutes and I don't want to encourage Sam to take shorter showers since that is how he wakes up. Anyone who has spent much time with Sam early in the morning is sure to agree with me here.

2. Hanging your laundry to dry outside was another suggestion but where I live it is likely to get wetter if I put it outside most days and we live surrounded by very large trees so it would take days to dry even if it was sunny out. Yep am going to have to take a pass on this one as well.

3 Using your car less or carpooling was also suggested but if anyone has walked up my hill by my house with a few bags of groceries they know this isn't probably won't work very often unless all I am purchasing is bread and I am motivated for a good workout.

4. Taking your own bags to the grocery store for your groceries seemed like something I could do so I bought envirosax bags (yes of course they are stylish and cute otherwise why bother) to keep in my truck to use. Now if only I can remember to actually bring them in the store.

5. Recycle - now this I do but it seems that both my recycling bin and the garbage are full but am going to keep on trying.

6. Grow your own vegetables. Sorry but this one is a lost cause as well due in part to our shady yard and the fact I remember weeding my parents garden growing up. I will instead try to buy more produce that is grown locally.

I have decided I will concentrate on trying to produce less waste, reusing containers, and shopping locally. Maybe by next Earth Day I will have found an electric car that will help cut down on how much gas I use and I won't be quite so enamored with my new shower.

what's for dinner?

Frequently during the day I contemplate my next meal and wonder where and what I will be eating. If I make plans to go out of town I think about where I will be eating. If it is somewhere I have been before I make plans to eat at restaurants I enjoyed, then I look on the internet or ask friends for worthwhile dining suggestions. I think there are even places I visit because I found a restaurant I want to go back to again.

Yep I am probably just a bit too fixated on food and I certainly could miss a meal or 2 without any repercussions but I don't want to give up any dining opportunities. When I visit friends or family I ask about our plans and if they don't mention food I bring it up, though in my family we all seem to mention the food part very early on. I am not much of a snacker but I do really look forward to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Most of my activities need to include food - if skiing I look forward to lunch in the lodge, if on the boat I bring plenty of snacks and more food than we will ever eat, if meeting friends there will be a restaurant involved of some type. I guess I just really enjoy good food and the part it plays in my life.

Growing up our family get togethers revolved around a meal or 2 and this seems to have carried over into adulthood. I have tried to make a conscious decision lately to not continue eating something if I am not truly enjoying it or just finding it somewhat mediocre. In fact as I write this post I am wondering what dinner will be right now. Yes I guess I am just a bit food oriented but everyone needs to have things they really enjoy and mine is looking forward to my next bite.

deadline oriented

Well it is the day of the year I dread - tax day! Once again I have waited until the last possible minute to have my taxes done. Well in actuality they were done late last evening so I am ahead of schedule but I have to pick them up, sign them, and of course send the IRS a check. Yes this would have once been called procrastination but my sister Tanya says it is really being deadline oriented. The latest I found a post office staying open today in the vicinity of where I live is 7:30. Growing up I remember my dad barely making it to the post office by midnight so I will beat him by hours this evening.

"If it wasn't for the last minute nothing would get done."

a perfect day - almost

There are plenty of great days in life but very few perfect days. Saturday was one of those days that was almost perfect. It was the last weekend of skiing at Stevens Pass so we met my dad up at this hill for a day of skiing.

The weather forecast was for 70 degrees in Seattle so we knew it would be a warm one. When we arrived it was already 40 degrees so we started taking off the layers instead of piling them on. It is going to be a warm day on the hill when you grab sunglasses and a baseball hat instead of goggles and a ski hat.

The sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful blue color. Unlike most last weekends of skiing we didn't have to look for rocks or the tops of trees since they still had over 150" of snow left though by the end of the day I think it was considerably less.

The only item preventing it from being a perfect day was the snow - it was slushy in the sun and crunchy in the shade which made for an interesting transition. My dad described it as someone grabbing the back of your skis hanging on and then suddenly letting go when your body was still moving and the skis weren’t quite keeping up. It made for a bit of challenge in keeping ones balance.

You could tell that everyone on the slopes wasn’t used to the sun or warm weather as the atmosphere had a bit of giddiness to it. When you live someplace where the sun in is short supply when it does come out it is time to celebrate. There were costumes, crazy hats, Hawaiian shirts, and even a few brave souls going shirtless or wearing bikini tops though they did look a bit cold. The beginnings of sunburns were already visible for those who had forgotten or chose not to wear their sunscreen.

We got in just the right amount of runs where during last run of the day you can feel leg muscles you didn’t know you had and are a bit wobbly. You know another run could be a disaster and you could end up getting a free toboggan ride.

We topped off a great day on the hill with dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant Chantanee, watching the Mariners win a close one, and sitting in the hot tub while it was still in the upper 60’s. What a way to end the last day of the season – I am already anxious for the next ski season even though it means the end of summer and a return of our gray and rainy Seattle weather.

360 degrees

We are once again facing another reorg where I spend many of my waking hours. I am sure everyone who has ever worked for any corporation knows the dread that comes with the word reorg in an organization. It is enough to strike terror and fear in the heart of any employee no matter how secure we might feel in our job and how much we enjoy where we work.

I am not sure what suddenly motivates a company, the same company who can take eons to figure out and move on other items, to suddenly announce a reorg within months or a year of a previous reorg and have the process complete within a month. The oddest part of the whole situation is that whatever the new organization looks like if the company is older than 5 years they have already had this "new" structure in place before. The new executives or the consulting company have suddenly discovered the way we were set up several reiterations ago suddenly will work much more efficiently now than it did previously.

Waiting for the new org charts has almost become a bit of an office pool - in fact I would like to propose that instead of filling out March madness brackets we should have office reorg brackets and the person who wins the office pool gets to pick any open position in the company they desire. After all the person who wins is very tied into the water cooler gossip and certainly has their pulse on the company.

I just find it all a bit ironic that in every reorg I have ever been a part of we have never really come up with a new structure - it is just a repeat. This one doesn't look to be any exception and I already have my office brackets complete in anticipation.