Review and Status

Advise me: for the past two years i've given my direct reports a New Year card. A number of folks keep them on their desk all year: i assume this means that it has been somewhat meaningful. Last year 5/13 folks in our section reported to me. One person no longer reports to me, two new persons report to me, and we've had two retirements. Now 6/11 report to me directly. Of the five remaining, one is me, two are folks i work closely with, one is the person who used to report to me, and one is my boss.

Should i just get cards for everyone? For my direct reports, i'd been writing a message that covers my thanks and my praise for them. I can manage the scaling by just keeping the other messages to those of good cheer?

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On Friday, wrote that "what i want" blog entry then disappeared into my work space, knocking out a monthly report without caring too much, and dealing with this and that. "Without caring too much," is key: i did not anguish over how it made my team & i look, nor did i spend too much time, nor did i thrash over the inanity. I just did it.

Then, i was off to therapy. It was an odd session, as when we scheduled on Tuesday i was the quivery mess. By Friday afternoon i was reveling in my sense of well being. I rather think i need to continue with her because i think coming out of this past three month cycle is going to be a challenge. The biggest issue, i think, is going to deal with the grief and anger about loosing those last three months. I feel i have protected my time with Christine, but the rest of the summer has slipped away. While i don't have the sense of malaise, i have all the things on the floor, everything i've laid down or dropped.

And i need to rest a little longer, i think.

How does one know "need"?

I came home in a celebratory mood. Christine wasn't chatty on the phone and was suggesting she'd just have cereal for dinner. I foraged for an easy celebratory meal at the grocery, and found cooked large shrimp, a nice havarti with dill, and vegetarian "wings." I picked up a four pack of fizzy Izze sparkling juices and returned home and put a nibble platter together. Soon we were both out in the cooling evening, sharing stories of our day. I was still giddy.

Saturday was less giddy, and i too the day slow. We're in a heat wave but between the shorter days and the cool evenings, if we shut in the cool around 9 am, the dim apartment stays pleasant enough. We went to the Sunnyvale farmer's market late morning and, while it was cool in the shade, the sun was intensely warm. It was a pleasant outing, though, and certainly felt better than the experience around the organic box we had been ordering. I can't say it was a better deal, or not.

The afternoon i spent on an experiment with the Dremel and shaping a quartz pebble from the lake in NC balanced with some crochet time. I played with Last.FM and Pandora, and found a new phone music client. Today i've fiddled even more with my phone, with Seesmic and Hootsuite, attended Meeting....

I'm performing the avoidant behavior from grad school, cycling through reading feeds (it was usenet then) and i have enough feeds to keep me well distracted. (LiveJournal is not replenishing fast enough.)

I'm not looking forward to Monday: the shift on Wednesday didn't make "it all" go away. But i'm capable of dealing with it all.

Health wise i think things are healing, although i have a discomfort in the back of my throat/right ear that i'm doing my best to ignore.