101 Postcards!

"80 Postcards for Adolph" has been a huge success. My parents were amazed by the response, and completely delighted throughout the year by the influx of postcards! You blew the target by a solid 26% - with a grand total of 101 postcards!!!! Thanks to all that participated, you have truly helped to make this year an extra special birthday for my dad!

To top off the celebrations we are living it up at the Bellagio in Vegas! Tonight we are headed off to see Cher - and tomorrow either David Copperfield or a Cirque show (still to be decided). Can't wait!

After the celebrations we will send out a summary of the postcards (e.g. farthest traveled, most postcards, etc.), so stay tuned!

Happy Birthday Adolph!

Why do all my vacations involve rain pants?

Well I'm super excited because today is the first day of my vacation!!! I feel like it has been a long time coming - I can't wait!

And what do geophysists and consultants do for vacation you ask .... well, nothing says summer vacation like going to see where techtonic plates divide! Yes, we are headed to Thingvellir, Iceland.




A few reasons for going to Iceland aside from the extreme excitement of seeing the techtonic plates move at 10cm / year:
- Eric's lab went last year, but he missed out because of a wedding and our move to Boston
- It's only a 5 hour flight from Boston, and I was booking our trip right after flying 6 hours to San Francisco for work for the day! So this seemed like an attractive flight option.
- It's pretty cheap to fly to compared to the rest of Europe or South America (which were our other likely options)
- I want to try walking on glaciers in crampons

And so now we have started packing for the trip. We're planning on camping for most of the trip so the packing is a little more intense than usual. And this is when I started to ask myself .... why do all my vacations involve rain pants!?!??!



Rain pants aside, I'm still super excited - so stay tuned for some sexy rain pant photos from me and Eric scaling glaciers!

And you thought we couldn't get nerdier.....

As Eric's PhD qualifier gets closer and closer, I've started to notice that our "nerd"-dom has been increasing. Here are a couple of instances that I think you might find very amusing (and/or incredibly nerdy)



1. Eric and I were mulling over the fact that we are complementary opposites on something (although I can't remember exactly what we were talking about) - a ying-and-yang some might say. But instead of going to this classic adage, Eric said, "I'm like Cosine and you're like Sine; square us and add us together, and we make one!"

2. Eric was on the couch practicing deriving first principles of various geophysics equations, while I was busy making myself a drink. I asked him if he was interested in a drink, and he said no. I responded with "Good thing, I don't want you drinking and deriving!" Badda bing!

Conquering fears and wearing skirts

This week was our first sea kayaking course and it was fantastic! Now we've taken kayaking before.... about 5 years ago, we took a white water kayaking course; but I must admit I am not really an extreme sport kind of person, so it wasn't really for me. Also, that was when I discovered my fear for being stuck under a kayak. Basically, we were practicing T-rescues, and instead of being rescued I ended up stuck underneath my kayak flailing about, gasping for air, yelling when I could, and basically panicking. Since we were practicing rescues, it didn't occur to me that I could simply take of my kayak-skirt and get out of the kayak. Needless to say, once I was actually rescued I was very shaken.

Here's a pic from 2003 of Eric and I white-water kayaking.


So, when I read that intro to sea-kayaking involved practicing rescues, I was somewhat worried that I would have to flip myself upside-down in my kayak. I was resolute that they couldn't make me, and I wasn't going to do it.

And so of course, after a mere 10 minutes of paddling, our instructor decided that the weather was perfect for learning how to exit and rescue. Eric, our fearless leader, volunteered to go first (such bravery!) I was still firm in my decision that I would not flip myself upside down in my kayak, until the instructor told us that we weren't allowed to wear our skirts if we hadn't practiced getting out of our kayaks with the skirts on. (For those who are unaware, the skirt basically protects your lower body from getting wet as you kayak - a fair amount of spray occurs when kayaking and you can get quite wet)

And so I did it. In lieu of getting wet in the future, I flipped my entire body (and kayak) upside down into the water (and didn't drown - another positive for the evening). Yes.... I'm a hero! ;-) I was proud of myself all night!

So all it all, it has been most fantastic! To make it even better we get unlimited kayaking for three weeks with our pass - so look for us if your strollin' down the Charles River!

Druid inspirations

Tada - here's my druid creation!





As I was putting the last few stitches on the hood, it occured to me that if he was red, he would look a little bit like little red riding hood.... and well .....






Not sure what I plan on making next ... probably slides... many many slides ....

Also upcoming this week, our first sea kayaking course - antics likely to follow!

Ninja's Attack!

I must admit I am quite proud of my ninja toy adventure. My first ninja came out quite successfully.


Then I thought, well if I can make ninja's, I bet I could make teenage mutant ninja turtles. And so I did. Here is Raffaele. I also made little tin-foil weapons for him, but later decided to throw them out as they weren't very child friendly.




Then I thought, well if I can make mutant turtles, I could probably make mutants. And so I did. This cycloptic alien looks a bit meager on his own, but I think with some other alien friends he could feel quite at home.


And so at that point I decided that I needed to get some more yarn to make sets of ninja toys for kids. So I bought some colourful thread and got to work. This however was when I discovered that I had actually messed up the original pattern I was following on my first ninja (which also explains why my ninja turtle is larger than my ninja). I then spent many ninja-attemps at trying to repeat my original ninja size. Here is my ninja graveyard of failed attempts.


But I finally have it down to a science and here is my first set of ninja toys! Ideally I wanted buttons for all of their eyes, but unfortunately, Micheal's did not have a bag of small black buttons, so I have had to move to felt eyes - which is probably more child friendly.



I also managed to find on-line some of the free patterns from the creepy cute collection. Next up, I'm thinking of making the druid! (see needlenoddles link below)

http://needlenoodles.com/home/?q=node/134

The army begins .....

My friend Jamala is currently taking a knitting course, which amazed me because it hadn't really occured to me that one could sign up for such a course. I mentioned that I also knit (mainly mittens) and that we should get together for drinks, cheesy movies and some knitting. And so we did.....

Of course this meant that I needed to find something to knit, and since it is not really mitten season, I decided that maybe it was time to branch out in to something else. When I opened my knitting bag, a two-needle sock pattern fell out and I decided that maybe it was time to take up sock knitting. Now I must say I'm not terribly inspired by knitting socks, especially since I don't really like wool socks - too itchy and bulky. But it was a nice exercise, and I was forced to learn a few new stitches. I made a concept sock (see below) .... it is oddly shaped because I didn't bother to follow the proper proportions, I just wanted to practice the hard parts.

Test Sock




But all this got me to thinking, maybe I should find something new to make. Somewhat inspired by my friend Catherine who has been posting pics of baby toys she has been making, I decided I should look at fun rather than functional things to make. And that's when I came up with ninja toys!!! Here's what I am now trying to make,



...but of course I'm too cheap to buy the pattern and too crazy to actually follow the pattern if I did breakdown and buy it, so I am creating my own ninja warrior designs. Stay tuned for upcoming results....

BTW - In case you were wondering, Jamala and I decided to watch "The Net".... lets just say, the internet has come a long way since 1994!

An oldy but a goody .....

I must say, I am extremely happy with the fervour with which people have latched on to 80 Postcards to Adolph. It has been a success from many standpoints so far - not only has it created a renewed interest in checking the mail for my parents, it has also allowed them to connect with people that they have not heard from in years.

Olive Schurek - Dad's cousin - sent through these fantastic postcards from 1920! Yes 1920! And to add to the excitement, the postcards are of pin-up girls! So as you might expect, at this point I will have to issue a warning - the following content is for mature audiences only, parental discretion is advised.


This first one is a little racy - she's showing some serious mid-calf, and look at how she teases the audience by putting her fully clothed toe in the water.



This next one is very saucy with some significant mid-thigh showing. The photographer taunts the audience here by using the table to almost cut the girl in half.



Definitely a fav, this one shows a private moment in the life of a pin-up girl.



Probably the most provacative of the bunch, this postcard has a nice ariel view of her bossom.



And finally, the best for last - this girl pulls out all the stops; she flaunts her body, showing full ankle!!!!



Hope you enjoyed these as much as we did - they are truly a fantastic find!

Burberry Eat Your Heart Out

With my hair nicely trimmed, I realized that I was starting to look a little less Jennifer Aniston circa 2002 and a little more Emma Watson Burberry 2010. Of course, it really does me no good whatsoever going around comparing myself to stunning 17 year olds, but I was surprised by the similarities in our dos. Now although we are both rocking the same hair colour and roots, of course Emma's steamy brown eyes, team of photgraphers and stylists somewhat out-does my home-based version.





Eric also pointed out that I should have had a fan! And I'm sure an actual Burberry outfit probably would have helped. Next time, I'll try for a little more pout in my smile....



And yes ... this means I have far too much time on my hands!!!

Makeover Madness

While Eric diligently plugged away at doing the taxes this morning, I thought it might be a good idea to give myself a makeover - and I think after seeing this upcoming "before" photo, you too will agree!

BEFORE


And so off I went to the hair-stylist. If you weren't able to guess it already, I am currently having a bit of a battle with my hair. After a decade of processing it, well ... it is quite crispy (go figure!), but at the same time, I am trying to grow my hair into long beautiful locks - therein lies the trouble. If I cut it, well it gets shorter, which goes against my goals; but if I let it grow, it just gets more dead and crispy. So I resigned myself to the fact that in order to get longer more beautiful hair, it needed to get cut. I'm also trying to figure out what to do color-wise. Again, after a decade of dying it, I'm starting to think that my hair might be better off with a little less peroxide - however, I just had it died deep brown-red which promptly faded away to the color you see in the previous "before" picture. Talking this over with my stylist, he claims that lighter colours hold better than darker colours for my hair type, so I should consider highlights over low-lights, especially over the summer. But today, I decided not to conquer that battle.

And so here is my "after" make-over pic. Much better. Bouncy, fresh looking hair. I decided I would have the stylist try to bring out the natural curl since I almost always get it straightened. I'm pretty happy with the results.

AFTER


Tomorrow I am going to try the Emma Watson in the Burberry ads looks (yes, despite just recently ranting about being mistaken for looking too young, I am going to copy a 17 year old's hairdo ... I am well aware that I am just perpetuating the problem!)

Life on the road ....

This week I'm kicking off round II of my big market research - so today I am in Baltimore prepping for a long week ahead.

Now often when I mention to people that I travel for my job, they tilt their head and in a melodic voice say "Oh that's too bad." or "Oh that must be tough." But as my husband would like to point out, I'm not staying in a tent in bush camps, I'm staying at the Hilton (well actually right now I'm at the Sheraton, but that's a minor point).

In fact I kind of like the travel, it has many benefits:
1. It gets me out of the office - mixes it up a bit, so that things are a little less humdrum.
2. I get frequent flyer and hotel points which I'm hoping to bank for super fun vacations.
3. My husband appreciates me more when I return. My cooking is always far superior (or at least perceived that way) when I get back!
4. I get to visit people on my way - this leg of research, I got to come see Kristen and Jason's new place, and on the next leg I'm visiting Tracey in Indiana.

And so although I find myself stuck in a hotel room watching Anne Hathaway movies this evening, I'm sure I would probably be doing the same thing back in Boston but would be many more Starwood points away from the future vacation of my dreams (yes the vacation of my dreams involves me not having to pay for anything!)

Battling the 30s

My understanding was that at each milestone birthday a person should sit back and reflect on times past, and ultimately realize that they are growing old - very old. And so, when I turned 30, of course I started to feel the weight of years long-since-past press upon me. The youth of my 20s was behind me, I had entered the decade of corporate climbing, mortgages, and child bearing. It didn't help of course that I was surrounded by 22 year olds at work, and that the "really old people" in the office were only 34. I had resigned myself to the fact that I was no longer young. (I do appreciate that if I think 30 is old, then what about 40, and I can't even imagine 80 at this point).

And then I moved to America .....

I'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden, I am having a "young" crisis. People everywhere seem to think that I am almost a decade younger than I actually am.

Yes - I got carded at the Cheesecake Factory. I know, seriously - the Cheesecake Factory. And even though I recognize that the legal drinking age is 21 in the US, I'm a good decade above that. In shock, I reached for my id slack-jawed, muttering "but I'm old?!?!?"

And this comes on the heels of a couple of recent client experiences of a similar nature. I recently mentioned to a client that I had played on an ultimate frisbee team - to which the client (with the same name as me) retorted "Why you're just like a younger version of me!" To which I responded - "what do you mean younger?" because from my impression we were the same age (in fact I might be a year or two older than her). "How old do you think I am?" I asked. 24. Yes. She thought I was 24. Appauled, I gasped and blurted out "I'm 31!" At which my whole team was shocked - apparently they too thought I was more like 25-26. Seriously? And then another client just last week asked me and my much younger counter-part if we would ever consider doing an MBA in the future. At which point, I had to tell her about my years building the space station, my gluttony for collecting degrees, and that I had finished my MBA two years ago. (Now of course she is probably 50-ish, so I felt a little better that she saw me as "younger")

But all this to say, it is giving me a weird complex. Some have said it's my positive-Canadian attitude that makes me younger, but I don't really know what to think. I should love it - because what woman doesn't want to be told she looks years younger. But the 30s is an awkward time in a career where you're trying to establish yourself and climb the corporate ladder, and that's difficult if everyone thinks 21 (or 24!) I know I'm probably not gaining a lot of sympathy on this one, but it's weird and unsettling. And frankly, if I'm going to be 24 again, I want a cooler wardrobe!

And we're back!

Cancun was great! There is nothing better than leaving all your projects in the throws of delivery to clients to go lay on a beach and do nothing but drink marguaritas, nap, make new friends, visit with old friends, snorkle, and do a little adventure spelunking!

Of course, a mere two hours into Monday morning, all this lovely relaxation had quickly dissipated .... and 12 hours later when I was still at work, feeding off of the office's lunch pizza left-overs and still cranking out slides, I could literally feel my nice tan sneaking away and replacing itself with the oh-so-lovely whiteness of my computer glow. It is a shame that the punishment for taking vacation is that you get to do two weeks of work all in one.

On the plus side, we presented the market research results from my travels two weeks ago to the client - and they loved it! Yay me (and my team of course)!

With no future vacations in sight, our next big adventure will be house hunting (or as Eric would like to put it, floor hunting - you see in Cambridge, even with over a million dollars you will only get a floor or two of a house with an outdoor parking spot - eek!). Nevertheless, we are eager to exit the renter's market and become a property investor.

On the postcard challenge front, things are coming along nicely. We are 33% of the way there, so keep those postcards rolling. Thanks for all the kind wishes for my dad!

Off to Cancun ....

After a grueling week of flying across the country for market research, I am now packing once again - but this time for a leisurely vacation in Cancun - hooray!

Here's a pic from the last time I was in Cancun. In the pic are my cousin Kim (now an accountant and mother of two), me (fabulous market research extraordinaire), and Kristen (now two - going on three science degrees richer) - times have certainly changed!

Will post fabulous pictures of my new adventure upon my return!

I stand corrected.....

For all of you who read the post about how Adolph and Diane met, I would like to say that this was "my" interpretation of how they met, but reality in fact was somewhat different. Here's the real scoop straight from Diane....

First off Adolph didn't need a date for an awards specific dinner, he needed a date for two Christmas parties for Esso. He had just been transferred to Winnipeg and he had not met anyone. Diane's girlfriend Sheryl (not Carol) set up the blind date. To meet each other before the parties, they went to a movie which Diane had already seen but didn't tell him. After the movie, they went to the Pizza Hut to talk and have pizza, before the Esso party. Now the reason I only ever heard about one party was that Diane only owned one party dress and didn't want to buy a second for a blind-date; she only accepted an invitation to one of the parties because clearly she couldn't wear the same dress twice!

And that's the facts!

Marketing is funny that way

This week I will be galavanting across America to do some market research with physicians. I always love going to do market research - it's like CSI without the crime scenes and many more snacks. Basically, we spend all day behind a one-way mirror watching physicians answer various questions, all the while munching on the never-ending snacks that magically appear throughout the day. Usually I'm the moderator (i.e. I'm in the fishbowl conducting the interview with the physician), which helps me from indulging in too many snacks, but for this wave of research I'm only moderating on Tuesday; which means three full days of having to restrain myself in the backroom from the snack temptations. We'll see how that goes ... I'm anticipating ... poorly!

It's funny though seeing all the thought that gets put in to new products. We have a team of people traveling across the US to ask physicians what they think of a new logo, a new color scheme, a new magazine ad, etc. The physicians get paid scads of money for their time - and often roll their eyes at us when we ask for the upteenth time "what else does this remind you of". But what's even funnier is how much importance gets put into the comments of these somewhat disengaged physicians who have come to talk about our logos, messages, ads, etc. Major corporate decisions are made, and brands that will be around for the next 20 years will forever be labeled with this specific mark because some physician said it captured his attention. But I love it - I find it fascinating to see other people's minds work; it's amazing to see how many different opinions come from looking at the exact same thing.

For a little market research humour you have to checkout the Diamond Shreddies campaign - it's truly hillarious. Here are a couple good ones!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOuC5jjTZOI

My favorite part of this one is when he asks her to rate it on a scale of amoeba to kangaroo - this is especially funny if you've seen my recent discussion guide (which you most likely haven't since it is confidential!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBayzdlsMQQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi20ImJHsWQ&feature=related

Postcard #2

Postcard #2 comes from my mom and will undoubtedly be the winner for the least traveled postcard. Again, you will note that the theoretical "first" card with the instructions for Dad has not yet arrived from its long trek from Boston.

Now, how does Mom know Dad ... let us warp back in time ....

Adolph had an upcoming ESSO event where he was receiving an award, and for the big gala, he was interested in bringing a date. So Adolph reached out to a friend at ESSO who had a sister who was a high school teacher who ultimately knew of some single women that might be interested in joining him.

[cut to high school, it is the end of the day] Diane had just finished a long day of grueling parent teacher interviews when her friend Carole approached her about going on a blind date. Her response was "Why not? I deserve a little fun!"

And so Diane was signed up to go on a blind date with Adolph for coffee in order to meet prior to the ESSO gala. Apparently the date was a little rough around the edges; but something must have clicked because Diane agreed to join him for his big event. At the event, Diane who was in her late twenties at the time was shocked when Adolph was called up on to the stage to accept an award for 25 years of ESSO service! His dashing good looks had clearly not revealed his true age! But ultimately chemistry won them over, and they have lived happily ever after. [curtain]

Postcard #1 Tahiti

This was the postcard that kicked off the postcard celebration - unfortunately, the postcard with the actual instructions to my dad didn't arrive until Postcard #4; so there was some mild confusion on the part of my father in the begining. I suppose that's what happens when you send out the instructions to everyone before actually mailing the initiation postcard. Although rather than place the blame on myself, I would prefer to blame the slowness of the US postal system. And although this postcard is from Tahiti, it was actually mailed from Winnipeg, so it travelled pretty quickly!

This card was from Marion and Richard Mantay - they go way back with my parents. Mom met Marion back in Sunday school, and they have been great friends ever since. Once they were each married and had kids, we even went on family vacations together (although not so extravagant as Tahiti). I remember many a summer at the campgrounds of Falcon Lake with the Mantays. Another especially vivid memory is of my dad trying to teach the Mantays how to make traditional Ukranian easter eggs. We brought our kit over to their house and spent painstaking hours applying the wax to the eggs. Dad's eggs always turned out to be the best. He had the steadiest hands and the most patience - which are the key ingredients to a good Ukranian egg (well that and the egg).

Family Fotos

This weekend we were up at the farm and it was all about family (well specifically the Morrow-Donald family). And so it seems somewhat appropriate that we also received our disk of family photos that we had professional taken at Christmas time. So in my narcissistic way, here are some of my favs from the session ....

Includes: Hillary Taylor, Warren Taylor, Heather Morrow, Roger Morrow, Eric Morrow, Carolyn Morrow

This is our nice happy-family-on-the-porch shot; a good pic of everyone!


This one is our "Sears family photo" version. Everyone looks great in it, but it kinda looks like Eric is stalking the rest of the family (moreso in the black and white version)


This one here is what we would look like if we were a gang of supermodels in the process of seriously judging your outfit (and disapproving of it!)


And this is my absolute favorite - which is going on my desk at work. We like to think of it as the cover of our album if we were a band (and by the way it would be a pretty terrible band, because with the exception of the Hillary and Roger, the Morrows are pretty tone-deaf ... I suppose not everyone has to sing though). The title of our first album would be "Fields of Hay" (and if you're not familiar with the Morrows, this is an apt title as they are hobby-hay-farmers .... yes, growing hay can be a hobby.)


Hope you enjoyed the pics!

My new hobby....

So I realize that on day 2 of my "word of the day" theme concept, I have already chosen to abbandon the theme, but it is because today I am too excited to talk about "words of the day". Today, I start my new hobby - competitive ballroom dancing!

Now I've had a few responses to this new hobby of mine already:
N from California said - "Of course, YOU would have to make it COMPETITIVE!"
M from Winnipeg said - "What about Eric? What's he going to do?"

And basically it comes down to this. Eric has no interest in competitive ballroom dance, let alone just regular ballroom dance - so rather than cajole him into it, and then have to beg and plead and whine to get him to actually attend class, I decided to circumvent that by signing up on my own. But how does one do ballroom dance on their own, you ask? Well.... if you happen to sign up for COMPETITIVE ballroom dance, you can join their Pro-Am (Professionals with Amateurs) program, where you compete with your teacher. So it all works out nicely. Eric doesn't have to dance. And I have a nice goal-oriented hobby. :-)

Tonight ... East Coast Swing. Tomorrow Rrrrrhuumba!

A blog theme ....

My husband giggles his little maniacal laugh of victory as I sit starring at the computer saying ... "I need to find a theme for my blog." He is delighted with himself for warning me that I should not start writing a blog without a theme and is now relishing in my frustration as I try to find something to write about each day.

But I think I have an idea at last ... a word of the day blog. Yes, since the goal of this blog is to force me to write somewhat more creatively than my hum-drum work emails, I thought it might work if I formulate my blog in the same manner that creative writing exercises are formulated. The plan: I will use the word of the day dictionary to provide an input stimulus for the day's blog, and see where that takes me. Let's give it a week and see where we end up!

http://www.reference.com/wordoftheday

Today's word: penchant \PEN-chunt\, noun
Inclination; decided taste; a strong liking.
Origin: Penchant comes from the present participle of French pencher, "to incline, to bend," from (assumed) Late Latin pendicare, "to lean," from Latin pendere, "to weigh."

As I am sure will not surprise you, today I have a penchant for coffee - although today differs from most days, as today I have not had any coffee [audible gasp from the audience]. I've decided that the addiction was a bit too strong recently and that I should take a short hiatus from my regular java and switch to tea for a few weeks. The result has been a very subdued Carolyn - it feels a little like I'm swimming through my day. My husband of course keeps asking me what's wrong; this less perky version of his wife is odd to him. We'll see how long this experiment will last, as "The penchant is strong with this one."

To sleep or not to sleep that is the question

Saturdays are tough for me. Despite waiting all week for the weekend, the lack of structure and the potential for a full day of ambiguity tends not to rest well with me. And although consultants are trained to deal with high levels of ambiguity, when it comes to my personal schedule, I like to have a plan. If there's no plan, I get bored, and then I typically just end up sleeping.

And I'm a great sleeper.

My sleeping has recently acheived a whole new level, thanks to the new polar fleece bed sheets we received this xmas. They are the fuzziest piece of heaven you will ever find. But they exacerbate my inability to get out of bed on even the best of mornings, and with no plan in place, Saturdays become a special struggle. The fact that Eric just yelled "It's cold out today." further amazes me that I am actually out of bed as we speak. Next step for the morning, the transition from bathrobe to actual day-clothes .... my trials and tribulations continue ....

Why do the banks of the world's economic leader suck?

The biggest difference we have found in moving from Canada to the US is banking. Banking in the US sucks. The reason it sucks is that the US was slow to consolidate its banking - and so they had lots of little banks with little money (ah the irony) to invest in innovative banking projects.... banking projects like "on-line banking".

Yes. The US is new to on-line banking.

You could imagine my surprise when I first saw Citizen's Bank's newest advertising campaign - "We NOW have free on-line banking." Seriously. That was their new ad campaign. Can you believe it? I was agast, although much less surprised when I found out that their ATMs are also still in dot-matrix font. And so I find myself somewhat frustrated today as I try to pay my MC bill on-line only to be told that I need to set it up at bank (which incidentally I have tried to do twice already) and in need of a good rant about the incompetencies of the banks. Good thing they aren't running the world's economy .... oh wait ....they are .... [insert looming sense of doom here]

Plans thwarted ....for now.....

As any good consultant, I have approached my "80 postcards to Adolph" project with true dedication and some good thought put behind it.

I've set an objective.
I've mapped out a timeline.
I've engaged key stakeholders in the process.
I've enabled my team with tools (see fun tracker on your right).
I've motivated my team with my energy and commitment to the work.

Yes, I've laid out a perfect project plan that should undoubtedly execute without flaw!

HOWEVER ....

Like any typical client, my father has thwarted my perfectly sculpted project plan. Yes. You will note that the tracker has not yet moved since yesterday. Why, you might ask? Monday should have a boom of new mail, you say!? I was expecting my postcard to arrive by Monday, you spout! And, well, it is possible that your postcard has arrived; but of course I cannot provide you with an accurate project update today (bad consultant, I know!) - because you see - Dad never bothered to check the mail. [gasp!]

Yes, there was a sale on sheets today at the mall. And apparently a sheet-sale trumps mail-checking in the hierarchy of prioritized to-do items. Of course, as is typical with consultants, once again I have clearly not understood the prioritization of my client's needs, and thus have failed to adapt my plan accordingly. And so we must wait until tomorrow for the postcards to be received. [exasperated sigh]

The Genesis of the blog ....

Why have I started writing a blog, well, I would be hard pressed to say that it is because I don't write enough in my day. In fact, I write an obscene amount of emails every day. And when you begin to write that many emails, not out of pleasure but out of necessity, you begin to find short-cuts to facilitate your communication. My short-cut is:

"Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns."

I write this one line dozens of times a day. In fact, I will often find myself having written this line three or four times in the same email. I then have to go back and edit it - I take out the "please", or I substitute "questions" with "comments", or I flip it to say "If you have any questions, please let me know". I effectively entrench myself deeper in my shortcut, and I find myself unable to write anything else.

And so, I have started this blog to push my ability to write by focusing on the pleasure of writing rather than the necessity.... well, that and I wanted to create a fun little postcard tracker for my dad's 80th birthday. Unfortunately, I haven't been structured enough to come up with an actual focus for the blog, and unlike my husband, I'm okay with that - I'm sure I'll come up with a theme soon enough. Suggestions welcome!