Birthdays and Valentine's Day

Usually my birthday tradition involves some sort of "sick" day or personal day, but this year Mother Nature gave me an extra present. We seem to be in a winter pattern not seen in about 20 years - or what winters used to be: snow about every other day, a precipitation mix that lasts about 12 hours and sees sleet, freezing rain, snow, white out conditions, slush, ice and temperatures that cause snow to fall while the icicles melt - and then just as quickly freeze.

Or you know, a typical nor'easter.

In ye olde days, this would be a true SNOW DAY: a day free from work responsibilities, a day to watch movies, read a book, or hang out. (If you had a car or property it would involve snow removal. Blessed be the poor aka Nettie, for doth she have neither of these?) In ye new technology days, this means working from home, conference calls on Bluetooths, email, .pdfs, and "track changes/insert comments."

Still, it was a most excellent day - to work, take phone calls, listen to voice-mails sung in 5-part harmonies, and get well-wishes... and open presents.

Me thinks my friend Jenn hath heard the tales of my people one too many times. Forsooth, it came to pass that some of Nettie's present came hidden in this box. As in ... "I hope it's not what's in the..."

I started to laugh, but had to stifle it, in case it actually was. Friends make sure that their friends are of the "regular" variety and all. I mean, Jenn and I are "not normal," but ...

My Valentine's Day also start off treat: I got to sleep in. The snow was bad enough to alter train schedules and cause a late opening.

Sleep. Sweet Sleep. 

YOU are my true love. YOU hold the key to my heart.

Hearts by 'Cupid' for various colleagues

Scenes from the commute:

Still life: Shadows and Shovels

Snow is so deep, it covers the Arts for Transit at Hartsdale

Guess I'm not sitting there to wait for my ride!

Despite the snow, doesn't the Rosen House look happy to have people on the property?

Caramoor Rosen House

Auntie Nettie's Attic Merchandise 2013 - February

After being more out that in the last two months, I am tending to stay close to home this month. For example, there were a few weekends when I didn't leave the apartment building. I just needed to hole up and recupe, unpack suitcases/boxes, file away holiday cards, letters, and pictures from the family, pay bills, balance checkbooks, and cull through things that had been piling up, like drycleaning, errands, etc.

Weekend 1, I just stayed in bed, slept, and zoned out on t.v.,
Weekend 2, I had an unofficial three-day weekend, 
Weekend 3, see weekend 1, etc.

The month saw:
~ Farewell parties for a few colleaques;
~ The installation of my new office cubicle, and reorganizing my space, hunting down more essentials and equipment; 
~ My birthday (oh, so much joy! - read as sarcasm); and
~ Valentine's Day (oh, so much more joy!  - read as more sarcasm); but...
~ Nothing major, which I needed.

It's hard to get back in the swing of things after being away for so long. I already would like to take time off, but since I've been away, and there are even more transitions at work, I don't feel like I can take the time. Maybe by April?   

Thankfully, there was a winter storm event early in the month (Nemo) that gave me a nice three-day weekend, where I plowed through my pile of UnFinished Objects that had accumulated during the various months of travels, including:

ANA 2013-6: Large Granny Square Toddler Blanket

(5 skeins Craft Smart acrylic)

ANA 2013-7: Pastel Baby Blanket

(3 skeins Lion Brand Baby Soft acrylic)
(as of 08/2013, no longer available, gift in trade)

ANA 2013-8: Variegated Holiday Stocking

(Red Heart variegated acrylic yarn, plus felt)

 ANA 2013-9: Striped Appliqued Holiday Stocking

(Mixture of Red Heart acrylic yarns, plus felt)

ANA 2013-10: Baby Pink Crib Cover

(1 10.5 oz Bernat Baby Sport acrylic skein)
(as of July 2013, no longer available, sold)

 ANA 2013-11: Purple Pastels Baby Blanket
(3 skeins Lion Brand Baby Soft acrylics)
(as of June 2013, no longer available, gifted) 

 In close-up

Also "finished' was ANA 2012-103, which was appliqued with just a tiny colorful touch.

Look at the stack of newly completed/tagged/piled up objects. Thankfully, or unfortunately, now the list of UFOs is now down to the one ...

UFO/Public Enemy Number 1

Multi-colored, multi-fibered bane of my existence, started back in 2010.

I need another LONG snow day weekend, so I can work on this thing and get it out of my sight.

MORE importantly, I need a long couple of weeks, so I can take pictures and write text and get all of these things up on etsy.com, do some marketing, and start moving them on out of the Attic.

In the meantime, if you see anything that interests you, please let me know and I'll send you dimensions and pricing.

Photo of the Day: Snowy Streets

Street scene, New York; around 11:40 p.m., January 26, 2011

presented with these comments:

It sure is pretty when viewed from the relative warmth of the fire escape, and when appreciating, once again, that you a) don't have to shovel the sidewalks, and b) don't have to fight for parking anymore.

Everyone seems to be home, tucked up in bed, asleep, except for me. I just had to grab the camera. I ducked my head out the attic window (in my jammies), turned the flash off, and hoped for the best. I love the rosy glow of the street light against the snow. Look how it shadows the mysterious tracks by the tree trunk and the footprints of the couple that just walked by, hand-in-hand under a pair of umbrellas.

5:00 a.m. update - The only time that texts are welcome at this pre-dawn hour is when they tell you you can go back to bed because YOU FINALLY HAVE A SNOW DAY. I may have been jipped earlier this month, but karma does balance out occasionally.

And no, even though I brought home with me, and could virtually access the office mainframe, I am not working today on my salaried/insured office paperwork. NOT in any way, shape or form.

Snow days mean, crafting, movies, and baking.

"Snow Day" Ramblings

Warning: This entry is full of excess silliness toward the end of the post. Chalk it up to the barometric pressure. Or something.

I learned something about myself today. Not only am I more hyper than I thought, but WASP guilt and no distractions make Auntie Nettie a productive girl.

Let’s back up a bit.

Today I was really hoping for a Snow Day. Like really, really hoping, giddy with anticipation, mapping out my list of Snow Day movies and projects, and looking forward to the text at 6:00 a.m., hoping for a Snow Day.

The weather forecasters were making dire predictions about the inches, nay feet, that we might get. New York City administrators geared up to cover their collective butts after the mangling of the Blizzard of Christmas 2010. The mass transit system went on a reduced schedule to preserve trains and tracks. Some school systems were canceling classes/sessions/meetings before flakes flew.

Alas, The Big J did not have a Snow Day. My area of NY got maybe a foot at the most. I could have gotten to the office if I had had to, but boy … am I glad I didn’t.

I came back from vacation remembering how horrid it was trying to commute during snowstorms last year and began to make a plan. Thanks to wonders of modern technology, Internet friends, and product giveaways, I have been doing more personal “computer-things” (yes, that is a technical term) at home. However, the ability to truly, professionally “work from home” for my salaried/insured job was never in my grasp until the New Lenovo moved into the Attic.

Thanks to a few well-placed, okay, CONSTANT bribes of treats this year, and a few late night Skype calls to Big J’s IT wunderboy(s) last week, today was my first day to “work from home.”

And you know what? I was actually much more productive working from home than I am in the office.

Mostly it was guilt – the fear that someone would swivel my office desktop screen to see what it was I was working on (which no one would actually do). Or it might have been something else all together.

There were certainly fewer distractions – no one walking my outside my cubby, no one walking up to the coffee machine, no one filing in my direct eye line, no treats on the office shelf to go over and taste test, and no long hike down the halls to a clean bathroom, which only encouraged me to stop by other offices and engage with other colleagues.

Time clicked by and I barely seemed to notice the clock -- whereas in the office time is marked by the morning mail delivery, lunch/gym /errand time, the afternoon mail delivery, the 3:00 p.m. stir-crazies, and then the sssssslooooooow movement of the clock from 4:45, to 4:50, 4:55, to last the run to the bathroom, to THANK THE DEAR SWEET LORD it’s 5:00 p.m. let’s blow this pop-stand, run for the train.

All of this is AFTER the morning commute where I would have had to fight for a space to stand on the one crowded local train an hour that was running from my part of the ‘burbs into the City, and the schlep and dodge through the subway that would have put me in a foul mood to begin with. THEN I'd only get to do it all over again, in reverse, with MORE cranky people. (Don’t even get me started with the Oh-It’s-a-Snow-Day Let’s-go-to-the-City-DumbA$$ tourists!)

I was actually up, presentable, logged on, and communicating with the office long before 9:00 a.m., and then, for some reason, I worked until 8:00 p.m. More of my annoying months-long, never-ending project actually got done in one day than I’ve managed to do in weeks. My trips to the bathroom took seconds, and I was back on the desk schlogging through data -- data that requires close concentration when you are comparing a series of 13-digit GL codes to other notations and GL codes. I also answered e-mails in seconds rather than letting them stack up in the in-box (which I should have cleaned out too).

I still ate lunch at my desk, but my environment sure smelled and felt better. There were no competing aromas, like my office-mate’s curry wafting everywhere or the odor of reheated fish (really people? REALLY!?). There was no lunch-hour office politics, like the mystery of why some people seem to think they get to take 2-hour lunches while others do not, or why some people get invited to lunch and others don’t.

Not today. Today lunch smelled of the brownies and brittle I made for the IT boy(s) who made this day possible. (Well under my allotted hour, thank you very much!)

As for all those other Internet distractions that I usually surf to avoid work – blogs, infotainment sites, and Twitter? I kept looking at those to a bare minimum, or read them during my lunch hour/baking break. In the office, I’d rather be surfing than working. (Regular readers of this blog/my e-mail friends and/or people who know me could probably attest to this.)

Now I can totally understand why some people telecommute.

Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t want to do this everyday. I can see how it can be isolating and how you lose the social bonds that come along with working in an office, not to mention how perceived "special arrangements" like this can cause office tensions.

But if I have major projects like this, or proposal research/writing to do? And if I’m not transporting sensitive materials like patron information, checks, or proprietary data?

I’m totally going to work from home more often.

Again, my dear friend Casey and Lenovo who made this possible?

SUPER HUGE TREMENDOUS THANK YOUs!

Special thanks to:

Dave, you know who you are – you don’t have to share if you don’t want to.

Molly at 711 – thanks for not commenting on how I look before I have hair and makeup done. Nettie
needed her Big Gulp of Diet Coke, no matter the weather! (That's the one thing I forgot to stock up on.)

Mr. Visine Bottle – Thanks for being full. 12 hours at a computer is not good for me, but you made it better. (Although, Note to Self: It is time to see the eye doctor. One can only ZOOM so much on some screens.)

And most importantly Mother Nature and Jack Frost. Thanks for the WORK DAY! (to be read sarcastically)
Another foot over this area of NY next time, please. Montauk and CT don’t want any more.