More awkward

And in case one awkward "Take down the sign" moment wasn't enough, a few days ago I got an email that stopped me in my tracks.  

At my last job, when I first started, back when there were four partners, the general manager's mom was working there. She was very emotionally invested in the business, and had picked up a lot of slack when the companies were merging. She brought her own set of um... , she was rather disorganized, often did things the hard way (instead of finding new and efficient ways to do the same tasks) and she refused to change how she did anything. But she was very well meaning and when I started, she felt like she finally had an ally. We worked together on a lot of stuff and I took a lot off her plate. What can I say, clearly we were office BFFs. In the midst of that, of course, I got a lot more personal information than I was hoping for... all the details of her divorce. Her current relationship. Her kids (including one of my bosses). Her grandchildren. Her friends at the club. Everything. In excruciating and sometimes horrifying detail.

So we worked together probably 4 months before the bottom fell out. Her son, the general manager, stopped coming to work for a couple months. So all communication went through his mom, which made it even messier. And there was fighting among partners. And then the general manager had some sort of mental breakdown and was in the hospital. Next thing we know he's suing the company with a rabid lawyer who is doing it all pro-bono as a family friend. He sent me an email saying it wasn't personal and don't take offense. And then threatening emails. It was messy. Not a little messy, but incredibly messy. And at this same time, his mom stopped working for us, for obvious reasons. And everything she had been doing dropped onto my already full lap. The whole thing was stressful and messy. The legal settlement nearly sank the company and the payments over the next year were maddening and damaging.  

To make all of this worse, the general manager who sued the company lives on my street, 2 blocks down, but on my street. I get to drive by the truck he stole (through legal settlement) from the company. And it was a struggle for me to fight bitterness whenever I drove by. Thank God for the grace to see that this guy isn't my job- God will deal with him in his own time and I was able to let go of the anger and move on with my life.  

Anyway, that was all a year and a half ago. Ancient history. Today I get an email from this woman. She somehow heard through the grapevine that I am no longer working at the company. She'd love to get together with me for a glass of wine and to catch up. She really enjoyed my company when we worked together and was sorry we haven't kept in touch.... 

TAKE DOWN THE SIGN REENIE

Take down the sign Reenie

Earlier this week, my dad and I went out to a job site to take some elevation shots on some pavement that wasn't draining properly. It is in a wealthy subdivision nearby and we do a lot of work in this community.  So we're getting ready to take the shots-- keep in mind my main task here is to hold a survey rod so we can get the elevations-- and the lady whose home is right in front of us comes home from the grocery store. She comes out to chat- she saw us at the meeting last week, thought the road plan and presentation was marvelous, blah blah blah. We start chatting- she's new to the area, came from the east coast a few months ago. She's probably in her mid-sixties. She asks about the driveway, so Ken starts telling her what she can do to fix it.

Then she tells us about her kids- three of them. None of them stayed in their hometown, which is why they moved out here- to be closer to the grandkids. Her husband comes out to join the conversation and ends up walking to the end of the driveway with Ken to talk about curb modifications.

I turn to the lady (is it bad I don't remember her name?) and she says to me, "I am so happy to be closer to family, but (she tears up) it was really hard leaving my friends of 40+ years and trying to start over here."  That's right folks. A simple trip to take some elevation shots-- to hold a survey rod-- and there I am, standing in the driveway with a sweet lady who is tearing up about missing her friends and their community. Unexpected to say the least.  

But seriously, take down the sign Reenie.

#2

I’m still plugging away at making Christmas presents (and staying up way too late, way too often). The original Pajama Eater now has a friend, faster and slightly better than the first one (of course). This one I used a pillow form for the body stuffing- thinking it would make them even more washable if you could pull out the pillow form to wash it. I should have gone with a slightly smaller pillow form or a slightly larger body.

The back is just overlapped to make the pillowcase. Like I said, if I use a smaller pillowform (12”x12” instead of the one I had 14”x14”) it would have fit better. Next one…

Pajama Eaters

My friend Jodi at SewFearless.com had this genius idea to make her kids Pajama Eaters to store their PJs in during the day. Brilliant if you ask me. I kind of need one myself.  Anyway, she went on to put it together into a fabulous pattern, which, of course, I bought. And to start off October decided to try my hand at my first one.

Not perfect, but pretty great. The next one will be better. In fact, I’m thinking about making them for all of my nieces and nephews if I can get my act together. Talk about a stash buster! 11 Pajama Eaters? Yes please.

Jodi sells the patterns over at her website and I highly recommend it!!

All told, it took me a couple hours to cut out two of them and sew the first one all together to completion. I’m sure the next ones will be faster.

September Round Up

September flew by in a flurry of… well, a little bit of everything!

My cousin got married… so a big party, and some of my other cousins were in town. And there was this really cute baby (belonging to one of the cousins). And there was an uncle or something of the bride who decided to get close up video of everything. Highly entertaining and not disruptive at all (note the sarcasm). 

I got strep throat for the first time in years. No pictures of that. It was kind of awful. And bombed a weekend… that one free weekend… alas. Modern medicine restored me to health and we moved on.

I finished sewing my quilt top together (though that might have been August) but I definitely remembered to take pictures of it in September.

I marveled at the beautiful clouds.

I sewed His and Hers matching aprons as a wedding gift.

And then went to that wedding in North Carolina with friends. Had some great adventures. Went to a great wedding. Drove a lot.

There was a bachelorette party. And some bridesmaid dress alterations.

I ate a lot of tomatoes and made some salsa.

Dinner with friends and their adorable munchkins.

And to top it off, a great weekend away in western Michigan with some girlfriends. Complete with fabulous food, perfect weather, wine tasting, and generally laid back moments with friends.

And suddenly, it was October…

Finishing stuff

Thanks to everyone who thinks my blog posts are more upbeat – I think life is more upbeat right now in general. Extreme burnout wasn’t pretty and it was a long period of sustained burn out, so I apologize—I really didn’t realize how bad it sounded!  I suppose I should also note the burnout was multi-faceted. Sure, there was that job thing for many, many stressful hours a week and then there was (is) some serious stuff going on with a loved one. And as I learned in the last year, there’s nothing like compounding extreme job stress with intense grief to make a person tired.

Anyway, now that the burnout is fading, I’m finding myself full of energy and inspiration to do projects. It’s like getting back to me. Only the inspiration is at a crazy high level from such a long period of complete exhaustion and being uninspired. I am trying to harness the crazy and keep it manageable. And I’m trying to finish some of the stuff I’ve started before getting into too much new stuff. So far:

- I started and finished a baby quilt for a friend’s baby, only a couple months late. And then it sat on my buffet for a couple weeks and I finally delivered it. Hurray!

- I finished a jean quilt that I started a very long time ago. I found the quilt top in my stash when I cleaned it out and then I proceeded to actually finish it. Woo hoo!

- We (the dogs really) finished Operation Chicken 2012. (Maybe a complete failure, but hey, it’s a finished project).

- I finally painted the hall. (I consider painting the trim a completely separate project- and it is not on this finished list yet.)

- I made new potholders.

- I made pillow covers for the guest room daybed.

- I finished one seam on my apron I’ve been using for about 2 years but kept forgetting to finish.

There’s a whole host of things I haven’t finished… and even more projects I’m starting… but for a moment there, it feels nice to actually finish a few things.