Archive of Marcia's Musings November 18-24, 2002Sunday, November 24, 2002
Getting Late . . .
I'd better get this post up while its still Sunday!! I've still got my vitamins to set up for the new week and a few more emails to write back to people. Its been a long, busy and productive day! First, I woke up early and made pancakes. I make them with "fake" eggs and apple sauce so they're low in fat which is the only thing that makes them edible on Weight Watchers. Brian doesn't complain-- in fact, it looked like he nailed five of them!! They were good, if I do say so myself.
After my shower, I hit PetSmart looking for Sally's shampoo and ear cleaner. I found one but not the other-- the ear cleaner that we got in California isn't sold in the pet stores here. I picked up the shampoo and some chew treats for her-- she's picky because she's old and doesn't have many teeth so its difficult to get what she likes and can chew. (I got lucky though-- she liked the ones that I got for her.) I went over to Target after PetSmart because I had to get some mascara and eyebrow pencil for me. I hate going into Target-- its always so busy with never enough people on the cashier stands but today, I breezed through the check-out line for a change. If that keeps up, I may go more frequently in the future.
Anyway, after a quick stop at the ATM to make a deposit, I headed over to the PetCo store to see if I could find the ear cleaner but, no joy. I called Brian (what did we do before cell phones??) and discussed which one to buy and then headed over to Safeway. Once I finished at Safeway, I came home and called my friend, Pat, and my sister, Susan. Sue couldn't talk but Pat and I did chat for a bit. (I called Sue back later in the early evening to get through to her finally.) Brian's sister called us this afternoon and we had a nice chat with her, too.
Sally? Well, Sally slept most of the day, as usual. She and I did go for a walk this morning (it was a gorgeous, crisp sunny day today) and we actually met a couple of our neighbors! That's the first time any of them have really talked with us since we've been here!! I guess they wait until they "know" what kinda people you are before they decide if you're worth talking to or not. Since we haven't had any wild parties, they think they've figured us out-- Ha!! Wait until next summer!!! (Oh, pullleeeezzze!! I'm joking!!)
During the afternoon, I sewed the binding on the last quilt and tied the knots. I've got a little repair work to do on the binding but then I can start hemming the binding tomorrow some time. I'm almost finished with it!!
That about sums up our day-- it was a wonderfully relaxing day and, no, I did not check my work email. I'm not going to either-- I've got the "Out of Office" bounce on my email set up so they're on their own!!
I hope you're having a wonderful evening and/or night, too!
Saturday, November 23, 2002Winding Down . . .
Its been a fun day for my first day of vacation. I'll be posting through Monday I think so that I start the first of the week with a little something for you to read.
This morning, I got my nails done and had a nice chat with my new nail person-- she's really nice although young. She is a good conversationalist, however, which is always a plus when you're a captive audience. I sure like the way she does my nails-- so much better than the last time that I had a fill in this salon. That girl just didn't do it right but Jennifer does and that's a good thing. Of course, none of them can replace Linda but that's why she's a friend in addition to a nail technician.
After coming home from that and having an early lunch, Brian and I took off for Gaithersburg, Maryland to go to the Sugarloaf Craft Festival. Tons of fun and cool things to see!! We found a couple of small Christmas gifts and, I found a gorgeous and warm pullover top for me to wear with leggings. I can hardly wait to go back to work to wear it-- oh, wait, no, I can wait to go back to work-- I just can't wait to wear the top!!
We were there for several hours but came home and Sally and I had a loonnnngggg nap on the sofa. Its been so long since she could get up there-- she's not supposed to jump up there so I still help her. She jumped up onto the sofa while we were gone though but doesn't seem any worse for the adventure.
No Agenda
Tomorrow, there is no agenda. At least one of us has to go to the grocery store and the other one needs to finish up putting down the storm windows. Hmmm, I wonder which will do which? ;>) (That's just a subtle hint, honey.)
On Monday I have a couple of appointments to attend to but the rest of the week is kinda up in the air-- I have no idea what I'll be doing!! That's kinda fun that way, isn't it?
Well, I'm going to go see what other trouble I can get into tonight-- I seem to have a lot of energy following my nap!! Have a great evening!
Friday, November 22, 2002I Survived!!
I'm exhausted!! I did survive and make it through to my vacation however, I can already tell it won't be long enough! I closed $5,000,000 in deals today!! Yes, it was a busy day, needless to say. I can barely think straight now and am having a hard time keeping my eyes open but, I got everything finished that I wanted to finish and that's the important part. With the exception of Judy's busy-ness, it shouldn't be too hard for her to cover for me next week. There are only supposed to be two contracts with changes to them and the third (the one where the woman doesn't listen), isn't supposed to get changes. If that company tries to make changes, the contract will go on hold until I get back which is not what they want-- for some reason, they are really pushing to close this contract.
Oh, by the way, one of the $5M that got closed was the one for the customer whom I went to see on the call with the sales rep!! I was really pleased-- I am hoping that our personal presence in his office made the deal close NOW, as opposed to seven months ago when we started the process. That, by the way, will probably be the biggest deal I ever close at this company: the buys that are waiting to be processed against it total almost $1M and it hasn't been signed yet!!
Alas, however, I am tired and am going to go to sleep. I'll catch you up on some of the outstanding issues tomorrow.
Thanks for your patience and endurance . . . as always, thanks for coming by and, have a great night!
Thursday, November 21, 2002Cast Off!!
No, silly-- have I ever gone sailing in your knowledge? (Okay, once but I didn't do anything but soak up the sun!) Sally got her cast off today!!! Yeah!!!!! We survived the six (6) weeks of booty wearing casts and the dirty looks from a dog that used to adore us. Okay, she still adores us but right now, she's a little ticked off at me and I would venture to bet that in about an hour, Brian isn't going to be on her list of "Good Buddies" either. As I type this entry, Brian is giving her a haircut-- yes, one of HIS haircuts! He didn't think it looked right for her to be so far off balance from where the shaved leg that was casted was from the rest of her hair so he decided he would cut it. Hopefully, he doesn't do as bad a job as he did the last time on the feet-- they looked like vulture feet!! The good news? She gets a bath right after the haircut-- No, I don't think Brian's going to be anywhere near her list of friends or even acquaintances by the end of the evening!
Anyway, we've all survived, much to our surprise and as with my knee surgery, we have to do some walking as her physical therapy. They suggest the best is a field so that she's forced to lift her leg high but I don't know of any that we can venture so we won't be doing that.
Almost There
I'm almost to my vacation-- there's one customer that's quite certain I won't be making it!! Even though there's no money to the contract, she's decided that I either need to have the document finished by tomorrow or I have to turn it over to someone else. If I turn it over to someone else, I'll be spending approximately four hours telling them about this deal because its that complicated! No, I won't be turning it over to anyone but I did get a chance to work on it today. It is finished but I didn't finish it until 3:30 and I want to have a fresh look at it in the morning. I'll give it to her tomorrow morning after I've had a chance to look through it again.
I'm going to survive-- I've got to cuz there's only one day. Hopefully, I'll get out of work at a decent hour tomorrow night.
I guess that's all for me this evening-- I've gotta go see if Sally's going to survive her haircut! Have a great evening, night and whatever!
Wednesday, November 20, 2002Is It Worth It?
I had a really long day today-- three phone calls that were scheduled and a couple of impromptu conferences with cutsomers. Prior to going on vacation, everyone is trying to get everything done-- NOW!! One call, that took 90 minutes, isn't even going to be producing a document this week because the customer doesn't like our term agreement and infringement indemnification. Apparently, this person has been living in a cave and doesn't realize that software, along with everything else, depreciates. As a result, we are not going to reimburse them 20 years from now the license fee that they paid now in the unlikely event that there's an infringement claim filed against our software. They seem to think that they get all of their money back-- forever! WRONG! The good news is that we know that we aren't going to do anymore business with this company-- they've gone to one of our competitors. Okay, so they'll probably be back when they realize that the competitor's software can't do what they said it could but I'll use that leverage when I need to later.
At any rate, there are just two days left before I have to leave the office for a much needed vacation. I am looking forward to unwinding for a few days-- getting away from the pace of it all. And, somehow, yes, this preparation madness is worth it afterall.
Dinner Out
As Brian told ya'll on his page, we had dinner with Moshe Bar last night-- wonderful man!! I wish his wife had been with him but she'll be here another time from what we understand. We had wonderful conversation and delicious food-- truly a great evening!! We went to Baltimore to meet him for dinner but hopefully, the next time, his business will be a little closer to our area and he (and perhaps, Avivit) can stay at our house-- it would be nice to have them here!!
By the way, yes, as soon as I get a chance to breathe, I'm going to be writing to Avivit to have her start a journal and join us Netwidows-- I think it would be fantastic to have another country represented amongst us!!
*****
Because it was a long day, it is going to be a short post and an even shorter evening for me! Have a great evening!
Tuesday, November 19, 2002Dinner Out . . .
Monday, November 18, 2002Its 10pm . . .
. . . and I'm just getting to post this now. I could've come up in between laundry loads but I hate doing that-- its literally a pain! Speaking of "PAINS", Miss Thang got mad at me tonight. Why? Because I put powder on the spot that she was licking and licking and licking-- you get the point-- and she shouldn't be licking. She's only got 3 days left with this cast but its going to be the longest 3 days of her life!!!
ANYWAY, she wouldn't talk to me or cuddle with me or let me pet her. She kept pouting at me and looking very darkly at me!! Terrible child!! Oh, well, she's mine and she'll understand when she grows up and has kids of her own-- oh, wait: I guess that won't be happening after all. Bummer!
Strange Day
Adequately busy or at least enough so that I didn't go completely nuts in the first few hours of the day searching for something to do. Received a call from John-- actually, several calls/voicemails were exchanged-- and eventually we caught up with each other. He wanted to specifically invite me to the conference call of a particularly large customer that we're courting these days. Sounded like fun to me so I agreed to attend.
Turned out to be interesting indeed. The contract terms and conditions are not that far off from what we find "normal" as far as the changes that they've made. I think we're going to be able to live with most of them although a couple are a little "Iffy". We'll see as things progress tomorrow and I check things out with my management.
Binding & Tying
Sounds interesting? Nah!!! Its just the only stuff that's left to do with the last quilt. I've also gotta put the label on but that wouldn't sound as interesting for a headline, would it?
Anyway, I'm going to sew the binding in the next night or so and then I'll start the hand-sewing. There's going to be knots tied in the squares-- 2 in each-- that are left and then, that's it! Voila!! Its (FINALLY) finished!
That will leave only one Christmas project left-- I've got more time to finish that one, too . . . or at least I hope I have enough time!
******
Its now 10:15pm and yes, I cheated and wrote part of that during the day at work-- what'd'ya expect? I don't have time for alot at night!!
It'll get better as the week progresses, I'm sure-- stick with me, and we'll have a ton-o-fun!! In the meantime, you have a great one at whatever it is you're doing!!
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