For as out of sorts as I've felt lately, the last couple of days I've felt pretty much chilled out and "normal," probably for the first time since moving (Monday's episode not withstanding).
At work I'm starting to feel like I engage pretty well, and even yesterday's frustration was overcome today by just stepping back and allowing myself to make decisions. We have to file "commitments" with HR, so that exercise has forced me to think a bit about what it is I'm doing there and what real contributions I can make. The neat thing is that everyone on my immediate team has more specific experience with certain aspects of what we do, so when one of us is looking at something for the first time or we have limited experience, someone else can jump in and help out. My niche seems to be UI design and coding stuff, with splashes of LINQ to SQL and Moq.
The one thing I need to figure out is how to take a break now and then so I don't burn out. If you go at it for four hours straight, it wears you out mentally, and I get the tingly numbness in my hands, which is bad. I've got a stack of magazines and baby books here that are unread... perhaps I need to bring them to work. Taking a break to look at Facebook or CoasterBuzz doesn't help the carpal tunnel.
At home, now that we're sort of caught up on DVR stuff, I'm trying to get away from the TV in the evenings after the news. I got this 27" monster screen in part to motivate myself to do fun stuff for my sites, learn a bit, and get that new site rolling (it's starting to come together). The healthy doses of Kool-Aid® at work get me pretty excited about all of the new stuff shipping soon, so using it keeps me sharp. People have suggested to me in the past that doing what I do for my job as my hobby as well is for some reason "wrong," but whatever. Spending all of your free time for The Man means your free time is then work (and maybe that's fine for some people), but writing code to serve roller coaster photos is not the same. It might not be snowy here, but doing outdoor stuff isn't the most possible thing right now. I suspect in the summer there will be hiking, photography and urban exploration.
I'm still a little freaked out about the baby coming soon, and the nice feeling of comfort I get right now in this groove will I'm sure go away. It's not even the baby itself that concerns me as much as all of the people who will be here at various points. In between the feeding and changing and what not, I look forward to sleeping, spending time with Diana and recreation. When he is awake, I look forward to the three of us marveling at what we did. I worry that it's going to feel like the holidays with someone always around you. I'm not saying that I don't want family here, because certainly they're entitled to celebrate the birth too, but I suppose we'll have to set limits and boundries.
I'm actually a little sad that I'll be out of work for a month, but because the leave is a pretty strong benefit, and that first month will be a sleep deprived unknown, obviously I'll take it. I'm still trying to get used to having a job that doesn't suck! It's been awhile.
Also on the radar, late March to early April, I'm going to try and make a coaster media day out east. It's too "big" to pass up. Diana is OK with me being gone 48 hours, but it sure will be weird.
But for now, I'm happy to be in a nice flow. Time sure goes by more quickly when you're working. I wouldn't describe it as slow when I wasn't, because I kept myself pretty occupied, but the weeks just seem to get to Friday in no time. I'll be a MSFT employee for two months as of this weekend. Diana, on the other hand, is finding that time has slowed to a crawl without a job, made more difficult I'm sure by her growing discomfort.
No comments yet.