Still staying home, staying away from covid-19 and still working from home. I am loving it. My commute and my inner introvert self are enjoying it very much! The covid-19 business, not so much.

It’s Monday morning and I am having a day out of the office. I have decided to take a few Mondays off from work June, because, why not, I need a break. Work has become very stressful. Everyone has come out of the woodwork and wants something done, yesterday! I am only one person working on multiple sites and can only do so much and I don’t have any backup to help me. It’s especially worst when the site areas aren’t working up to par and I need to get help from my other IT counterparts. I’ve already done some work this morning on my day off. I woke up and realized I had a item that was due today. I double checked my email early in the morning and darn it, it needs to get done as they are important memos that need to be posted on the site. So, on my day off, I took care of business. No big deal, this part of my job is fine as the site actually works without any issues. Now that the items are done, since I’m online and all, I’m on to reading some articles on LinkedIn and then later in the day I’ll be getting yard work done outside. My plan is to spray the house with aunt repelant as they are everywhere this year. After that, take care of the weeds with my weedwacker.
Hopefully my landscaper will come on over with the mulch soon so I won’t need to do as much weeding. From my understanding, the mulch will keep all of the weeds at bay.
Yeah, my lawnmower broke and haven’t gotten it fixed yet otherwise I would be doing lawn as well as the weeding. During this covid-19 time, I don’t want anyone at the house fixing things, you never know what they will bring over. We will wait until this pandemic is over until we fix the machine. But I digress, I’ve learned there is some sort of spray or something to put down on my flower beds in order for the weeds to die and not come back, at least for this year. Hopefully, this will not kill my flowers in the process and only the weeds. But, honestly, right now, I don’t even care if it kills the remaining flowers. The deer eat everything anyway! They ate the sunflowers that were growing so beautifully and they even ate the day lilies, they must of been super hungry because they have never eaten these before.
Here are my sunflowers all eaten up. It’s all stem.

• 

This is one of the day lilies that the deer did not get a chance to eat.

This morning I heard a loud boom noise and thought it was some sort of car accident right by my house. Something like a car hitting a telephone pole or something like that. I was online doing my work when I thought, crap, the internet is going to go down. Surprisingly, it didn’t, I stayed online, which was odd. Usually that type of sound is bad news for TV and internet at the house. I didn’t think much of it and went about my business. Later in the day, when I was weeding outside, was when I saw a poor deer laying on the ground on the side of the road. That loud sound must have been a car that hit that deer. Some people drive so fast on my road its unbelievable. Seeing this, I felt so bad for the poor deer. It’s true that I am not a big fan that they eat my flowers and bring all the ticks to the yard, but I don’t want them to be hit by a car either. What a sad afternoon it was, seeing that. What can I do? Do I call animal control? I don’t know. I’ll have to find out if the neighbor’s know what to do. The poor thing is right by their driveway.

In the evening, we played pokemonGo. We went to Riverside and got in some poke stops and did a few raids with a few friends. One of our friends is a chef and she brought over mac and cheese for the little one. I tried some and it was delicious. I’m not the biggest fan of macaroni and cheese, but this one is really good. I must ask her for the recipe. My little one’s dinner was just that. Ours was ribs, rice and salad. Sorry, no photo today. The phone was charging and I was very hungry and forgetful. Next time we have ribs, I will be sure to take a photo to show you.

It’s Tuesday, it’s 6 o’clock in the morning, and what do you know, I am working checking my emails online already. If I don’t do this, I will be so backed up by noon that I won’t have time to breath. There is so much to do and so little time. I have another product launching tomorrow and not much prepared for it as I am awaiting on my IT counterparts to add the product to the backend of the site so I can get going. Meanwhile, I am looking through all of my 200 emails that I received yesterday while I was out of the office. Fixing the messes and clearing out my inbox, that’s the name of the game today.
I am now two hours in and still cleaning up. I love my job. I love my job! I love my job! I hear if you say this at least three times, your wish will come true.
By 9AM I had to take a break; washed my face, drank my day’s worth of coffee intake, and fully made the bed, decorative pillows and everything. Now all I need is some more coffee and a clean pair of eyeglasses. Yup, my glasses get all dirty from tearing due to all of my allergies. I bet you were thinking I needed something else that was clean; like socks. But no, I am all clean. Showered last night and put on all clean PJs which I’m still wearing. I think today is a PJs all day kind of day. I don’t have time right now to think about something to wear that is appropriate for working from home, so PJs it is. Ok, break is over, back to the grind.
And the grind it was, I barely had lunch and only took a 15 minute break or so. It’s now 6PM and I am still working. What a long day I’m having. One good thing is that at least I have everything completed that I need to have for tomorrow’s product launch. Soon I will be dining and going to bed.

It’s now Wednesday and I have a product launch this morning and surprisingly, it actually all worked out. The last one didn’t go so well, but today, today was all smooth sailing. Thank goodness!
The smooth sailing didn’t last. Everything was all good until the afternoon when I just couldn’t get it together. There is a microsite that I was supposed to have created last week and I can’t get it to work. I had to ask for help from multiple people in order to get one, I thought, little thing accomplished. This fix took all afternoon and it took the wind right out of my sails. I’ve had to ask for help to create this microsite page from multiple people and I really hate doing that. I’d rather figure it all out myself. But with this one, I just couldn’t, I needed extra help. At one point I got so frustrated that I was in the verge of tears. And only in the late afternoon, did we finally get it to go the right direction. I still have a long way to go for this site but at least its finally working.
I kept on working on this thing for hours. I multi-tasked on other items, of course, but always had to get back to this; now I’m going to call it, nasty microsite. I am literally all over the place with work. I was at it until 9 0’clock at night and by 9:30PM I called it a night. To reflect on the day, I luckily have good work friends who have lots of patience and helped me along with this microsite. I want to forget this day…I’m going to bed. Goodnight!

It’s Thursday and I am still working on this crazy microsite. I can’t believe it’s taking so long. When is this going to end? At least it’s all about fixing and they are “easy” fixes. As long as my developer friend will provide me with the code, it’s an easy….Thank you Anthony for the code!
It’s the afternoon and my nightmare of the microsite creation is over. The microsite is live and it looks fantastic. I’d show you, but its behind a firewall and you’ll need a user name and password to get into the extranet site and I can’t do that…sorry! Trust me, it looks great and everything works. It’s exactly what the requester wanted to see on the website and they are happy with it.
While things at work are working out, things at home are falling apart. The dishwasher is broken, the hot water heater is leaking, the sink is loose and the fire alarms need replacing. We’ve got a lot to do and fix. So my husband went to the hardware store, mask and all, and got a bunch of tools and fixed the sink today. Thank you hubby! As for the dishwasher, we need to order the part that is broken, so only hand washing the dishes for now. The water heater is a different story. We may need to get someone to come to the house and take a look at it. Or maybe not, we’ve still got covid-19 on the brain and may wait just a little longer to get it fixed.
The business of being under the sink to fix it took a few hours. While the hubby was under the sink, I was online with the little one doing homework. We were doing live recording on how she reads a book, what is symmetry and watching a video on being scared to be in front of the classroom and then making a video or drawing to talk about being in front of the classroom and how it’s not so bad. I wish I had that when I was a kid. I was painfully shy and would not do any public speaking of any sort. It took me a long time to get over that fear. My daughter is shy as well, so we will have to work with her to get her out of her shell and be able be in front of the classroom without any fear.
It took us a while to get the fixing and schooling done so we only got to go pokemoning for an hour or so. But we did find two raids to do. We caught a bunch of pokemon and two legendary characters. Then we hit the pokagyms in our neighborhood and fight all of the characters and take over the gyms. Hey, its something to do to get out of the house and its entertaining for the whole family.

It’s Friday and I got to get a run on my treadmill this morning. But before that, I had to go around in the basement to check all of the leaks and the issues that we’ve been having with our appliances. As of this morning, all is good. Nothing is leaking, nothing is making any funny noise. Everything is good this morning.
As for work, we’ve got things calm right now until the storm that is going to be next month with a lot of product launches. We are getting ready for back to school and we are going to be selling a lot of new stuff to our partners.
Due to all that’s been happening at work, I’ve been feeling a little down and was looking for some inspiration. So I turned to twitter and searched for #motivation and saw the below image.

This one spoke to me today. I’ve been planting those seeds. One of the seeds that I’ve planted is the following: I am succeeding! Another is: Today is the Best Version of Me. There are many others. I actually have a journal where I’ve been writing all of my repetitions to become realities. Ok, I’ll share some more. A another one is: Today is a Good Day to be Proud of What You Have Become and Overcome. And, one that my mentor has guided me on is: Always do Your Best. And lastly: What’s Meant for You is Already Yours. I’ve been writing these, and others, down every day so that my subconscious mind will stick to these and make them a reality. I tend to be very negative, especially about myself. Doing this journal has helped me to get some more confidence. I’ll be honest, some days it works really well, others, it doesn’t work at all. But I go day by day.
This evening we go pokemoning again and this time we do raids with friends. We snack on nuts and m&m’s. It’s a good evening with friends.

Stay safe and healthy!

Your story is your superpower. Everyone has their own story and should use it more often toward their advantage.

In my current story I am running on the fine line of being in Project Management. I have been taking courses and been studying very hard to get my career on a path that is good for me. This is so I can do something that I love and that I am hopefully, good at. I do love what I am currently doing. I think that going in the internet marketing path and sticking with it was a good idea. It brought me to Canon and to where I am still today.

For many years, I worked in radio doing odds and ends and it wasn’t working out too well. I was working as an Assistant to the sales team, Promotions Director and doing Board Operations. What I really wanted to do was to be on the air. So I did my demo tapes and submitted them to Program Directors. In the end I was basically told that I needed experience in order to get a chance to be an on air personality. Well, here’s my question. How the hell am I supposed to get experience without being hired in order to have experience?
What I read from it was that I would need to drop everything that I had, move out of state, get a crummy job for $5 an hour, get a year or two of experience and then maybe, just maybe, get a job in the New York market for $9 an hour. I’ve gone to college, payed a ton of money and did a ton of work and for so little money. Ummm, no thanks.
At the radio station, I was an administrator during the week a promotions director on the weekends and did board operation after hours. I worked my ass off doing all of those jobs but unfortunately, my day on the air was not for me. During my board op. days, I as so close to the microphone in the studio, I could taste the life. Oh well, it was not meant to be.

One day the station decided to create a website. I was not very interested at the time until I was told that my position as an administrator had been eliminated. I was then offered to help part time on the new website that they were newly creating. The website was about coupons and the motto was to “Click, Print, Save!” All of the sales team now had a website they could sell to their clients. Not only the stations’ perspective web sites but also on the site that I was working on; yourLI.com. The site was not only about couponing but also a reference to find local businesses and what they had to offer. I started off with working on spread sheets and calling restaurants to find out if they were handicapped accessible, if they had gluten free and vegetarian varieties and so on. Soon I went from part time to a full 8 hour work day. Then I got an offer to be an Internet Marketing Professional and work on the website full time. Thank you to my coworker who also now my friend, Mike, who taught me everything. I learned the basics of html and how websites work from him. I also made life long friends with Giselle and Janine, and of course my bosses Joe and Paul. I am still in touch with these wonderful people on social media and they were all invited to my wedding way back in the day. I absolutely loved working with all of them. They were wonderful to talk to and we actually had a lot of fun while in the office. We had a lot of laughs. When one of us had a hard day in our personal life, we would talk about it in the office and would help each other by talking it over. Mike called it a “couch session” as if we were at the physiologists’ office. I can’t tell you how much of a great amount of time it was. I am so grateful on how my bosses believed in me and let me learn and do and be my best during this time in my life. Unfortunately, yourLI.com didn’t make it. The General Manager made the executive decision that the site wasn’t making as much progress, or perhaps money, as upper management would like. So they let the Internet Marketing team go and luckily, I was able to get the job as a Sales Assistant, where I had originally started off at the radio station. I wasn’t very happy being an assistant to the sales team. It wasn’t a bad job, it was just that I wasn’t happy with what I was doing. I wanted to be on the the air and/or a better salary. If I couldn’t be on the air, I would like to go in the Internet Marketing direction. At that point I had gotten a taste of the internet and I wanted some more.

I was job searching for months and applied to a ton of locations. One day I saw a posting for a job at Canon for an Internet Marketing position. The posting stated that the individual would need to have experience in knowing the basics of html and a couple of years of experience and of course, a Bachelors Degree. I was very afraid that I wouldn’t fit as at the time, I knew very little of html. But like my pal in “The Devil Wears Prada” says “I am smart and I learn fast.” I am dedicated and will do my absolute best to make my job my number one while I am at the office.
I remember writing my cover letter to Canon’s HR and spelling Canon with two n’s; Cannon! I had only realized it afterwords. I couldn’t take it back as I had already pressed send. I was sure they would never call me back. Who would hire someone who spelled their company’s name incorrectly. Luckily for me, they answered me. They told me they would like to interview me. I was over the moon! The interview process felt very professional. I wore my black suit and my purple power button down shirt and met with the HR representative and then the Internet Marketing Manager. I of course took a sick days from my Sales Assistant job in order to interview. At this time I had also interviewed over the phone for Newsday, but I had already gotten two interviews from Canon and was more interested in them than I was with Newsday.
I was so happy with the results at Canon that during my second interview I spoke with the Manager again and then they had the Senior Manager and Director talk to me as well. I know now that they don’t generally do interviews that way. They usually have a third or fourth interview before the introductions are made to Senior Management. I guess they liked me that much that they had me introduced to the upper management right away. Oddly enough, the Senior Manager had told me that I may be bored at this particular job, but I ensured her that I would not. That I would be just the right match.

Thankfully, I got a job offer shortly after. I was so happy! Also, I was given an offer that was double the amount that I was making at the radio station. I was clearly making less than the average person with my skills. And, I was to be hired at a lower position of Associate II, luckily HR decided that I would be a good candidate and they gave me the position of Associate Specialist. A higher position at a higher pay grade. I was so happy that I made it into a great company with a better salary. I wanted to start right away. Since I am such a good little worker, I did right by the radio station and gave them two weeks notice like a good girl. My thought process back then, and still is today, you never know where you are going to wind up. So do the right thing. So I did not just quit my job as a Sales Assistant. When I gave my two weeks notice to the radio station, they were all surprised that I wanted to leave radio. I was so into being on the air that it was all I talked about to everyone. And they were very surprised I was ok with leaving. Even during my job as an Internet Marketing Specialist, I would continue to do Board Operations after hours so I could be in the studio.

Initially, at the office, I was very guarded of where I received my new offer. But then I said to myself, screw it, I deserve to show off a little bit. I felt like I had been pushed around at the station and I also felt that some people were making fun of my dream of being on the air as I was and still am, shy. So I decided to tell them where I was headed. Some of those that did not believe in me, had a stunned expression that I was going to such a prestigious company. Today, I am happy that I made that transition.

I started Canon in March of 2009 and I was working on the Canon PartnerNet site. This is the site where the Canon dealer and distributor get their content for their business such as images for their advertisements, notices and promotions to conduct their business. As part of my job, I also need to keep in touch with the sales teams and regional teams so that the dealers can make their purchases on the site. In the end, I am basically doing the same things I did at the radio station; Sales Assistant and Internet Marketing all put together.

At Canon I must have done such a good job as an Internet Marketing person that a couple of years later I was promoted from Assistant Specialist to Specialist. I don’t think my direct manager was very happy with this promotion but I know that the Senior Manager and the Director were happy about it, as they told me so. I was ecstatic! I kept on doing the work and kept on doing my best. Kept on focusing on my job and adding value to the site. I kept on staying late and doing my job and helping the product groups with their requests, as my job is to basically work for them. Including those last minute items that needed to be done close to 5PM. There was one instance where, luckily, I was staying late to finish some sort of promotion. The Camera product group made a booboo on something that was already posted on the site that I worked on. There was an incorrect promotion and they were panicking that it was out there for the dealers to view. They requested to remove it from the site and if I could stay at the office a little longer so the promotion could be replaced on the site that evening. So I stayed. They finished the graphic and the promotion information and then they provided it to me via email so I could place it on the site. I then posted it quickly and let the team know it was ready for the dealers to view. They must have been very surprised with the speed at which I did this. I remember the face of some of the people from the product group and how concerned they were about the incorrect information that was out there. And then the relief of on their face when I told them that it was fixed. I don’t know if this was it or if there was more to it. But they did sent an email of kudos to my bosses to let them know how great of an employee I am. They were very grateful for my speed and concern. I don’t know if this was the tipping point or if there was more to the story, but, shortly after that, about two years, I was promoted again to Senior Specialist. I was told by my manager that this type of promotion doesn’t happen this quickly at the company. Usually, promotions are reviewed only after five years or so on a particular job. I was so happy that I was promoted, I remember going into the General Manager’s office and being so happy to be there I had an ear to ear grin that day.
In my company the upper management personally congratulate every single person on their promotion. I remember vividly, it was December 26th and I gave my heartfelt thank yous’ to the upper management and let them know that the next day was to be my birthday. And, what a wonderful gift I was receiving of being promoted to a Senior Specialist.

Fast forward a few years and now, I am going to give myself some praise for an idea that I had for the Digital Marketing Services Division that I worked as part of Internet Marketing at Canon. I noticed that my work husband, Anthony, was doing a lot of work on creating web pages for the product groups. He would do everything; soup to nuts. Create html, update images in photoshop, add analytics and do anything else that the product group needed. One day he told me that he was very busy with all of this work when an idea occurred to me. I said to him, “hey, we have so many talented people in our group at the Digital Marketing Services Division, why don’t we create a subgroup of a team that works on creating websites for the product groups, that way it clears your plate a little bit. We have people who know how to create websites, we have design people, people who are professionals in creating videos and social media and emails. Let’s create a group that does all of that for all of the product groups and see how they like it.”
I didn’t have enough courage to go to upper management to get this going, but my work husband did. He told me to go in and talk to the Senior Director about this idea and see what she says. So we both went into her office and proposed this idea and I ended the conversation with; “who knows, Ellen, maybe in the future we can have an extension of this team to be part of the DMSD team.” The Senior Director was on board, and to my surprise, she said that we should take the reigns on this project. We both became the dual Project Managers for the “Special Projects Group” and we got to work.
This side group was to be something for everyone on the team including those who wanted to learn. If you wanted to know more about html and how it works, one could sit in with one of the more experienced employees and learn from them. I became the Project Manager on the administration side and my work husband became the Project Manager to all of the projects on the UI/UX side, basically, the designer of all of the websites we created.
We worked on many projects while the Senior Director, Ellen, was in charge. After she retired, so did the Special Projects group. However, they noticed how well the Special Projects group did as a team that the company decided to create their own UI/UX team to help out all of the company with their website needs. I didn’t get the credit, nor did my work husband, but that’s OK.
Now there is a UI/UX team who are working on the company’s IT department to this day and that is a good thing. That means that the digital world continues to thrive at Canon. Including my job.

I have been working on the Canon PartnerNet site for 10 years now. And we were in the process of hiring someone else to work on the website as I was transitioning to work on the other intranet web site called Partner Portal. The site is the same concept, the only difference are the products. For me it is the same type of work. I add the content to the site and ensure that it is there for the dealers and distributors to view what they need for their business. There is a little more html work involved, but not too much that I can’t handle.
The first person that we were training to work with us, unfortunately, did not work out. She was initially an Administrative Assistant and did not have any html or website content management system experience. We tried to work with her and had to have a lot of patience to train her. Some of the times, I did not have so much patience. I learned that it is not the way to go, patience is key when training someone on something new. Some people take more time to understand what you are trying to teach them. Not everyone learns at the same pace, and not everyone picks up what you’re puttin’ down.

Shortly after, we started interviewing for anther candidate and we wound up with someone who had also been an Administrator at the company. I thought, oh no! here we go again. But, now I’m ready with my patience. Surprisingly, she took everything in very well. She took a lot of notes and asked a lot of questions and was doing very well. This all happened during the time of covid-19. We had to train our new person over the internet during conference calls. I thought it was going to be a difficult task, but no, this became very simple. We shared screens and showed how everything works and it was working out very well.
We trained this new person, Pam, for about a month until it all fell apart…A lot of layoffs. My boss for over 10 years was let go. The Senior Director of our department was also let go and the division was broken apart. What we had worked so hard to become the Digital Marketing Services Division, but now it is no longer the direction the company wants to take. Information Technology, IT, took over everyone from the team. I am now the proud worker of the IT team at Canon. I never thought that I would be part of the IT team in a company. But like I always say, you never know where you are going to wind up.

I never thought that my working at this large company would bring me through such different positions in my life. Coming from radio, which was my passion, to going to Internet Marketing to now, IT. It has been a ride. A fun ride if I must say. Looking back, I have always had a good time at all of my jobs. When I was younger I also worked for a bagel store, a chiropractor’s office, as an Assistant Manager for Sally’s Beauty Supply, Nike, Deli, and I’ve always had fun at my jobs. But these are stories for another time. Anyway, I always try to find the positive in everything that I do. Especially while I am at work. We are at work for the most part of our lives, we might as well make it fun. Sure there are times where I’m frustrated and not having such a good time, but in the end, it is all good.

So here we are, I am in IT and they need a Project Manager for one of the projects and my new boss needs help. She told me about it and I automatically told her that I would help her with anything that she needed. She told me to take my time and to think about it first. But, I was so exited about it that I practically agreed to it right away. She told me she would speak with her upper management and would let me know if this is the direction they want to take. I told her about all of the Project Management classes that I have recently been taking and the current class that I am now taking for Project Agile Management and she told me that it was good that I had taken these courses. Hopefully this will lead into something good. I mentioned it to my husband and he warned me to be careful and to not bite more than I can chew. And he is correct. With all of the layoffs the company has been having, one slip and I may be next. Until next month until I know which direction my work will take me.
Until then, be well and stay safe.

This weekend was a full workload!

I was outside spraying the house with bug repelant in the hot morning into early afternoon. We were getting bugs in the house and we can’t have any of that. So spraying we will go. I must have sprayed around the house about four times. My hand was hurting after so much spraying.
And then I was getting rid of leaves with my mother-in-law. There were a bunch that were under the back porch that we needed to get rid of so the bugs won’t make their nests under there. All the while weeding the back yard by my girls play area. While we were doing that, my munchkin brought out water for us and said “here is your delivery.” After a while she came out outside again with her little garden boot and brought us a “special delivery” of a half an apple each. What a good girl. I’m sure daddy helped her too. How nice of both of them.

Once the leaves were taken care of. I got to bleaching the play area so we can get rid of all of the tall grasses and the ticks that live there until we get the tick repelant in the mail from the store. I’ve been trying to get everything delivered as much as possible. As soon as we receive any delivery we clean it all up with bleach to get rid of the corona virus. This virus is still out there in full force and we do not want to risk getting sick. We haven’t been to a store in months because of this. Everything has been dropped off at the house. It’s been costing us a ton of money in delivery fees, but that’s a price to pay to stay safe. Until we can afford it, we will continue to do it. We tip everybody and we tip well, including the poor UPS guy who keeps on having to haul heavy packages for us from Home Depot, BJ’s Wholesale and Amazon.
After that was done, I took out the weed wacker and got to work in the play area as well as around the vegetable garden. It was getting tall grasses and the deer ticks just love to hang out in there. I took the weed wacker all the way to the shed where our friend Woodchuck Norris lives. He’s our free range wood chuck or, maybe he’s a groundhog, we’re not sure. I just know he lives under the shed. We don’t think its a she because it has been living under our shed for a few years now and we have never seen any little ones. So we’re thinking this one is an old bachelor.

Once I was done with the weed wacker, I got to the plants that are by the steps on the back porch and removed them all. These too were getting deer ticks. When we sit outside by the steps, we’ve found two ticks on us. One was on my little one’s arm the other day. That’s one tick too many. So, they have to go. But don’t worry, I didn’t just throw them away. I transplanted them to the side of the house.

The deer tend to not like the day lilies plants, so I have planted them by the back of the house underneath the bedroom windows. This is great for ground cover and these suckers grow just about anywhere.
That did it for my Saturday adventure in the outside world. So I got inside all sweaty and gross and there was a nice surprise. My husband and the little one were making home made pizza. This one had mushrooms, ham, crab meat and peppers. And, the crust, ohhh good Lord! It was stuffed with stretchy mozzarella cheese. Delicious! Great job daddy and baby girl. We all ate a so much, that our bellies were full and we couldn’t eat anymore.

If Saturday was catered to the front yard, Sunday is for the front. I’ve looked at my sunflowers and whatya know. They were all eaten by the deer. Those cute little bastards ate all of my flowers. They must have been delicious by the state they left them…just stem. They left the day lilies, but the delicious sunflowers; those just had to be eaten.

In the afternoon we went for a drive and noticed how lonely the roads are here are a few photos of the empty roads of Long Island.

In my back porch I notice that my sage plats has purple flowers to them. I had completely forgotten about these. Look at how lovely they are. And, they smell really nice too.

Stay safe everyone. Tomorrow starts another week and a fresh start.

I decided to take this Monday off. I have been working so hard that I definitely was in need of a break. I took care of the vegetable garden, as I hosed it down with an item to get rid of the bugs on the vegetables. Then, I washed my car. The darn thing was so dirty that I had to soap it up a couple of times before it looked somewhat decent. Once that was done, I got planting.
My husband brought me lavender, carnations and other pretty flowers to plant on the front yard and that is exactly what I did on Monday afternoon instead of being inside on my PC.
My little one helped me out and of course she plucked the majority of the flower petals as she thought they were so beautiful. She was also throwing dirt around getting herself all dirty and I had to tell her to stop doing those things. I can’t even count how many times I had to tell her as such, and then eventually yell, for her to cut it out. I even got some dirt in my ear. Darn kid lol.

Meanwhile, I found a wild little rose bush in the backyard and placed it in a flower pot. If it takes, this one will be going into the front yard by the trellis.

My other roses are growing beautifully at this time and I am very happy they are doing well. I don’t have the greenest of thumbs, and when flowers do well by me, I become a very happy camper.

It’s Tuesday, I’m looking at my work email and I have over 100 unread emails just from Monday. It took me all morning to look through all of them and figure out which ones were emergencies which that I had to get to right away. Which ones to do right after that, and of course, which ones to tackle later as there are so many. I have a launch tomorrow and I have much that I need to take care of. I don’t think I will be taking a break for lunch. Maybe, 5 minutes for some yogurt and then back to the grind.
Turns out, I promised my little one that I would take her out on a bike ride today. So on a bike ride we went. She asked me why I had to work so much and why I wasn’t a waitress of something else instead. I told her that being a waitress is hard work and that mommy is not cut out to be waiting on people. But I told her that you never know what life will bring you. I might become a waitress some day. I personally went from fashion buying and merchandising, to radio to internet marketing and now I’m in the IT department. Never say never. You never know where you’ll end up.

In the evening we when to play Pokemongo in the town nearby. Social distancing, of course as we stayed in the car the entire time. There weren’t many legendary raids. So we did a small raid and went to a bunch of pokestops and then came home early.
At home we make whole wheat bread and got ready for dinner.

This was dinner…Ribbs on the BBQ. There was also some rice and black beans, but I clearly wanted nothing to do with that. It was an Atkis kind of diet for me today. Only ribs.

It’s Wednesday and I have gotten a workout in, in the early morning, and that was the best part of my day. The rest of the day was not good one. Not good at all. I have two products launching on two different sites and both of them have not been going right. One of them is not orderable on the site. The other, good Lord help me. The product is not viewable on the site. Not good! So the main things that the sites do; they are not doing. Not a good morning at all. I’ve been typing away to my IT counterparts like crazy to make sure these things start to work. From instant messaging to emails, there was a lot of communication going on.
I like my job. I don’t want to loose my job. I’m not ready for that yet. I don’t have anything lined up at all. I’m too busy working to be looking for anything else. Plus, I really do enjoy my job. I’m very frustrated and annoyed when things don’t work out.
After these disappointing events in the morning, the afternoon was just as discouraging. I became very self conscious about things not working this morning that the rest of the afternoon became very slow and I was unmotivated.
To get some pep, I’ve been listening to a TedTalk from Mel Robbins, “How to stop screwing yourself over.” It so far is giving me something…a smile, a pat on the back, not sure yet. Take a look, how does it make you feel?

Today is going to be another long day at work in my bedroom/office. There was an issue with a model id for my launch and it can not be updated systematically by my IT people. This means that I have to do it all manually. It’s going to be a long night.
And, a long night it was. I stayed online working until 9PM! Luckily, I got all of that work completely done. After all of that work was done I felt relaxed and drank some water. Then, I drank some more water. After all of that great H2O, I got a big old cramp in my stomach. I drank too much! I was so full and so badly unconfortable, that I couldn’t stand up straight. I was hunched over for about an hour until I took some Alkaseltzer to release the gasses that I had all up in there. My husband was telling me to take some Advil for the cramping…I didn’t. If I drank any more water, I think my stomach would burst.
While I was in my own pain and hunched over, we were around the stove as we thought it was broken. It kept on going off. So odd. It is gas and it needs electric, so the hubby unplugged it and took off all of the burners and I cleaned them with rubbing alcohol just in case they had grease and was causing the issue. I don’t think it worked as the darn thing kept on going off. We may need to buy a new part for or a whole new stove. In this time of quarantine, we will need to figure out what is wrong with it and purchase whatever parts that need replacing over the internet. I hope we don’t need to replace the entire thing because it will be a hassle.

It’s Thursday morning and I think my husband tried to wake me up in the morning to help him with his footwear. His sciatica continues to be acting up and he needs help putting on his shoes and socks. But I did not help him this morning. Not sure if he didn’t need or want any help or if his pain has subsided. I’ll have to ask him after he gets back from work.
So, he told me later on that he called me numerous times, turned on the bedroom light and then called again and nothing. I was dead asleep and did not hear anything at all. He had to bend and put on his footwear all by himself and it hurt, especially that early in the morning when every muscle in his body is cold and hurting.
As for me, I got online at 6AM and checked my disaster of a launch from yesterday. Everything that I did the night before showed up and everything was viewable on the site. Thank goodness! I left a nice email to my counterparts apologizing for the lateness of the content as it was the fault of the system and how it currently works for us. And a thank you to my team for all of the help. At that time I also did some other work online, I was on a roll and I figured, let me get some other work completed. Then, I thought to myself, “self? why are you online so early in the morning? lets go get a workout in so we get those endorphins working.”
So I did, and I was on the treadmill for a nice hour for a walk. No running today, I did that yesterday and my achilles tendon are hurting me on both feet. So a walk was good enough for today. After my shower, I open up all of the windows in my bedroom/office. Ahh, there is a nice breeze out there and I would like to air out the room and get some fresh air up in here. The room smells like sleep and that needs to go right out the window. I’d like to get some work done today without the sleepy scent.

It’s now 10AM and today is a dizzy kind of day. I’ve been feeling dizzy all morning and can not shake it. I’ve already taken my medicine and that is not helping. My medicine intake is another story for another day. When I’m ready I’ll let you know all kinds of medicine that I need to take but for now, the allergy medicine I also took is not cutting in and I’ve got the dizzy Izzys.
Side note: yes, Dizzy Izzy was my DJ name back in my days of radio and no, it wasn’t because I was dizzy. It rhymed and it was silly. “This is Dizzy Izzy on the mic.” My friends liked it so it stuck. Oh, how I loved being on the radio. It was my passion. Unfortunately, it did not work out. There were a lot of things that I needed to do in order to get my career on the road for radio. By the time I figure it all out, I thought it was too little too late and I was not in the mood for moving out of state to pursue it. So I went the internet marketing rout instead and never looked back. But hey, never say never. You never know the kinds of opportunities you may get in the future.

I haven’t watched the news lately but there has been buzz about phase two and a bunch of locations opening up. For all of my friends who have businesses. I wish you much success on opening up. I am sure getting back into it at a this slow pace can not be easy. But I do wish you all much luck.

While taking a break from my work, I read an article on Inc.com that I thought was very interesting and I’d like to share. “Run your life like a project manager.” It goes on to let the reader know that running your errands at home can be like projects. The can be tackled the same way you’d manage a project at work. Give it a read. I thought it was wise advise. I’ll be taking the advise and applying it to my daily life.

It’s Friday and the allergies are crazy. I was able to go for a run in my basement this morning and I was fine. Shortly after my run, my head was on fire. I take my medicine and that didn’t do anything. I am having trouble seeing. Everything is blurry. Then I take allergy medicine and that didn’t do much either. I am able to see better as it is not as blurry, but I still need the lights off in my bedroom/office to be able to see the monitor in front of me. Now, I will need to take some Tylenol for this headache. What is happening to me?!
While at work, I had training on how to create a microsite in an IBM content management system. I’ve had some training in the past but I got stuck and needed some extra help. Unfortunately, the system itself isn’t working correctly so what I did wasn’t incorrect at all, it was simply the system. And the system kinda sucks! I will need to wait for my IT people to take a look at it and fix the bugs so I can work on it. Meanwhile the product team who requested this microsite is itching to have it completed. Pressure much!
I had to close the windows in the bedroom/office because the allergies are simply too much. I left the door open and requested the other air conditioner in the other room to be turned on cooler so the bedroom/office could get some of that air. We did just that, and it worked. The room got much cooler and my headache subsided, then, I could see the screen. Thank goodness for AC!

Dinner is salmon, collard greens, potatoes and avocado! Delicious!
I love everything about this dinner. I drizzled a little bit of olive oil over the potatoes and collards. The avocado had some lemon drizzled on it as well. So good!
My belly is full and it is time for bed.

Stay safe and be well. Until next week!

It’s Sunday night and I can’t sleep. Instead, I am listening to a webinars in scrum.org. The one that has interested me is Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems. This webinar is about Professional Scrum Trainers, Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller as they walk through some content in their new book.

It’s now Monday morning and I’ve already gotten a workout, a shower, a product launch and a conference call in my day. I hope I can focus on the rest of the work for the remaining of the day.

During a quick break, I went outside to look at my plants and see how they are growing for the season. Don’t know why I did that to myself, the pollen is outrageous. I can’t even see straight anymore. The grass is being cut and the pollen is being thrown all over the place and my eyes are not happy campers.
Below are my pretty clematis that I brought into the house. I had to shake the pollen off of them before bringing them in. There was green everywhere.

I can’t go on without bringing in the #blacklivesmatter movement. I am very happy with the peaceful protests…I understand you, I see you! I am however, very saddened and distraught about the violence and destruction during this time. Not to mention the covid-19 pandemic is still out there causing disruption. This is what I have to say: I am very sad and distraught over everything that has been happening in this country. The death, the destruction, the politics…all of it. I’m hoping that everyone does their part on staying safe during this time of heightened emotions.

I was listening to the Elvis Duran replay channel and they had Dr. Michael Eric Dyson on the show. He had a lot of education for the public when it comes to racism, take a listen. He is on at 66 minutes into the broadcast. “You gotta figure out a way to blockade the bigotry,” is something he said on the interview.

It has been a long workday and thank God the day is almost over. This was our dinner. Pasta with corn and BBQ pork chops filled with spices and herbs.

Last night, I couldn’t sleep, I was tossing and turning until about 3AM. Thinking about all of the riots and how my black friends have such a hard time living in this world as human beings. Also, thinking about things that I should have said in situations that have already passed and then thinking about the past and the hard times I’ve been through. I was ruminating. I have a tendency to ruminate and get stuck in the past and have a hard time getting passed it. I was contemplating writing about it. And then I also thought, do I share or do I just put it on my journal for myself. I don’t know yet. Maybe I will share some things with you guys and then, when I get the courage, maybe I will share the hard stuff. I am the woman I am today because of a lot of hardship. And some good things too, its not all bad. But I did go through some hell to get here.

As for work today, I’ve had conference calls all morning and afternoon and in between these, my daughter has also had conference calls all morning. I’ve had to take quick breaks from mine to help her with hers. What a crazy balancing beam I have to walk on today. Because, I don’t have enough on my mind! Due to all of this juggling, the workday flew by.

Went outside for a little while, after work and looked at my flowers. This is something that I do to release some of my stress. I notice the sunflowers are growing nicely.

My clematis are doing beautifully.

Rhododendron are also doing beautifully. These bushes came with the house. They are now making a barrier between my yard and the neighbor’s yard. They look just beautiful during this time of year.

I am so glad that my flower children are thriving. During this time of the pandemic and protests and riots and the world ending. I am in love with my flower children. It is the one of the only things that keeps my mind away from the crazy tragedies that are happening in the world. My kid does too, she puts a whole new perspective on things. But that’s kids.
Today, I have to turn off the news and listen to something soothing like ocean waves or rain on a tin roof in order to relax a little bit. Some of my writing also takes my mind away from the crazyness. The other thing that keeps me sane is to take photos. As you can see above, I like to take photos of my plants. They don’t move, they don’t talk they are perfect candidates for a photo op.

This was our dinner. Quinoa and brown rice. Collard greens with garlic and salmon with lemon, rosemary and a ton of other herbs…delicious!

It’s only Wednesday! It has been a long week for me. With all what is going on in the news and all of the work that I have had, I feel like I’ve been working for 10 days straight. I need some time off. Just a day would be good to refresh and recharge the old batteries.
Who am I kidding, if I take a day off; I will be outside working on the garden. There are many leaves that still need to be removed from the backyard and a lot of weed pulling before we get the mulch delivered.

This morning, I got out of bed early and helped my husband with his socks and shoes. His sciatica on his back and legs are inflamed and he has a hard time bending down, so I help him with his footwear. After I help him to get his cooler together, we kiss and tell each other to have a nice day at work. Then, I get my workout gear on and onto the treadmill I go. I only did a little bit of running this morning. For some reason I was very tired and was not in the mood to run for too long. So I walked uphill instead and watched Good Girls on Netfilx.

Today is just one of those days that I do not want to do anything. I’ve already been working for 3 hours and I am so done with all of this work. I keep on having so much work to do that I’m becoming tired of doing it. I’m in the need of some motivation for my everyday tasks. Maybe a youtube video on motivation is in order. I will share I anything helps.

I looked to twitter as youtube wasn’t doing it for me today and looked at #motivationalquotes. This is one that I found and spoke to me…Goals!

I took my lunch outside today. I had some leftover salmon. And after 5 minutes of being outside, my eyes started to water and I began to tear up. Shortly after eating my tupperware of salmon, I came back inside, wiped my eyes, and took some allergy medicine.

To get some motivation I am listening to Tony Robbins and he says, well, a lot of things. He’s a talker lol. But, one thing he said that I took notice is to “Feed your mind for at least 30 minutes a day. Something that helps you grow. If you don’t feed your mind, weeds will start to grow. Feeding your mind will keep the momentum.” I thought this was good advise. I will be looking for a webinar or two to feed my mind.

This was our dinner. Bangers and mash lol with peas.

This was dinner for the little one. Little smiley face.

And of course, because we have an artist in the house, we needed to make a sculpture out of the mashed potatoes and sausage lol. This was my husband’s dinner. A little bunny with sausage ears.
He is very creative!

On Thursday morning, I got back on my knees and helped out my husband… To put on his socks and his shoes. What do you think I was doing?

Then I went down to the basement for my workout. When all of a sudden, I hear a strange and yet, familiar sound. Dripping of water maybe?! So I turned the corner and noticed that the boiler was dripping and that section of the basement was flooded. Well, so much for my workout. So I get the vacuum out and start vacuuming up all of the water that spilled on the floor. Then I had to bang on the pipe so that it would stop dripping the water. Needless to say, I made a whole bunch of noise and woke up the house.

Luckily the flood wasn’t too great and I woke up so early that I still had time to put in a run. I was so hyped up from the flood and all that cleaning that I was able to add another 10 minutes to my run from the days prior. This is very exciting news for me. I hope that the next time that I go for my run that I can mimic the same hype and run for a good half hour without stopping. That is one of my goals for next week.

As for work, lots of conference calls, training and just plain same old, same old, work.
In the afternoon, I had to take an allergy medicine in order to be able to see the monitor as I work. I’ve also had to close the windows in my bedroom/office as the heat and the pollen were all coming in. Hopefully the room won’t become so stuffy and hot that it’s intolerable. I have my class tonight for Project Agile Management and I will have to continue to be in my bedroom/office for the class until 10PM.

Right after one of my zoom meetings, my little one came into my bedroom/office and asked if I was done with work so we could go outside. It is such a nice day that she wants to see the sunshine. I told her no, I am not done with work yet, I still have a few hours to go. So then she asked me when I was going to take care of the garden, “it needs your help mommy. You need to spay it for ticks and bugs. I don’t like bugs and I don’t want to get bit by a tick.” Sorry pumpkin, not today. Today I have work, then I’ll have a quick dinner, than back to my bedroom/office for my class. “ok mommy” she says. “Maybe on the weekend you can get rid of the bugs.” Yes, my love dove! On the weekend.

This was dinner. Summer soup with home made bread.

During my class, I fell asleep. It’s not that it was a boring class, but I’ve had a day filled with too much excitement and at the end of the day, I just let myself go a little bit. At the end, I finally woke up as we then had to take an assessment test. I got an 84% on the test, not bad for someone who fell asleep during class.
This has never happened to me before. In all my years as a student, I have never fallen asleep in class. But today, I am on my Victorian chair with a little pillow on my back and it is somehow comfy, and it knocked me out. Now that I am looking at my dinner, it could have been why I fell asleep. All of those beans and hearty meats and cabbage. Plus that huge slice of bread. That could have done it. As for the class, it is ok that I missed it, since it was done on youtube and it will be on there forever, I can always go back to it and listen to it again and again. Ah technology!

It’s Friday and I am struggling to get out of bed and get to work. I got on my knees this morning again to help out my husband….with his shoes and socks. Get your head out of the gutter lol.
Then when right back to bed and stayed way passed my alarm clock. I even started work a little later than usual, 8:15 instead of 8AM. I technically start at 9AM so no biggie that I was on 15 minutes later than I wanted to, as far as work is concerned. Hopefully, this won’t back me up a for the days worth of work. Yesterday’s work and class put me out and has made for a very tired Isabel. I will need some energy vitamins to help me out today. And, maybe some more coffee. Mmm Coffee!!

Today is a PJ’s and barefoot kind of day. The room is hot and muggy and being barefoot and having a shorts and t-shirt PJ’s set is essential. So, I don’t have my summer clothes in my closet yet. I need to get on changing my wardrobe from winter to summer, as I still have sweaters and my snowman PJ’s in the closet. This weekend will be fun filled with taking care of the garden and taking care of my closet.

Work was just insane today, so much to do and so many items to post on the website. I didn’t have time for lunch nor my afternoon coffee. And, I am working way over quitting time. At this rate I will be working until 8PM again like I did last week.
Now its 8:30PM and I can’t do it anymore, I wanted to have my work all done for next week but it’s not going to happen today. I’m so tired right now that I can longer concentrate on work. Going to turn in and probably go to bed and watch something silly on Netflix.
Meanwhile I am at my kitchen table and the phone is on selfie. I take a look at the chandelier my husband made for me and I’m looking at it from a different perspective. I love my chandelier, it is one of my favorite things in my house, plus it was an item that was made for me. I love it!

Till next week for more of my #wfhlife.

It’s Monday and it is Memorial Day. A day we reflect on those who lost their lives to protect ours.

I wake up late as my office is closed today and I have the advantage of staying up late and waking up way after the alarm clock. We had a breakfast of waffles and coffee that my husband, the early bird, made. He can’t help himself. He gets up everyday at 4AM, so on the weekends he can’t stay asleep past 6AM. So, the nice gentleman that he is, he makes the family breakfast.

After breakfast, I get to reading a book that I have been working on for about a month, Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry by Mary Higgins Clark. I am half way through it and today; today, I will finish it!
While I’m reading, my girl and her daddy are doing homework. They are working on writing a story about her favorite playground.
In the afternoon, we get going on making a Memorial Day pizza. It has bacon, chicken and mushrooms. Again, it is a daddy and daughter pizza. They love to create in the kitchen. Our home made pizza is so good, it fills the craving for store bought pizza.

In the evening I am working on studying for my Project Agile Management course. I am having some trouble with this today as there are some fireworks going off for Memorial Day. So I decide to listen to webinars about Scrum and how to be a Scrum Master, in Scrum.org, instead. I am taking this course so I can get ahead in my career in Project Management. I am thankful that my husband and mother-in-law help with taking the little one and entertaining her while I sit down in my bedroom/office and study for my course so I can take the certification.

Tuesday is another dreadful day for work. More layoffs, from the IT department this time. Some of those are people that I have worked with for years and considered my friends, were let go. This made me sad. With that, saw this quote today that I really liked “I wanted to let you know that the right place values you in the right way. Don’t find yourself in the wrong place and get angry if you are not valued. Those that know your value are those who appreciate you, don’t stay in a place where nobody sees your value.”
As for my type of work, I am swamped with work. I don’t get why my company let so many people go when there is so much work to be done. That’s one way to bring up profits.

Watching the news; 73 New Yorkers have lost their lives to covid-19 yesterday. We are now focusing on reopening the state. Long Island is to open tomorrow. NY City is to open later. May God help us all.

During lunch I took a step outside to the beautiful day that it is, being cooped up in the bedroom/office all morning has made it for a dreadful morning including the bad news that I heard. It was tough, but lunch was good. I had a yogurt with a banana and then some coffee to help me stay awake. In the afternoon I had some more conference calls.

I have been listening to some motivational speakers who stated you should have yourself a journal and jot things down as if they’ve already happened. The example the motivational speaker use was, “I am in the sickest shape of my life.” This will motivate you to keep going to the gym or working out or yoga. Anything that will keep you motivated. Some of my items in my diary are:
1. I am successful
2. I will do better today than I did yesterday.
3. Smile.
4. Always do your best.

The 4th one was provided to me by my mentor. She has listened to my crap about work and personal life. Especially about work and my frustrations. The advise that I got was to “Always do your best!” No one can take that away from you. Leave the gossip behind and keep focusing forward. During the covid-19 crisis and even after, the new normal as they say, this is great advise to keep. Onward and upward always.

This was our dinner. Hamburger meat in tomato sauce with lots of spices and pasta.

It’s Wednesday and yesterday I asked my husband if he could wake me up before leaving for work. I needed some motivation to get up and get in a workout. Thank you husband for keeping your word. You woke me up and I got to work. After my shower, I got right to my work as I have much to do today. We are having more launches on the websites and I need to get everything ready.

My little one and I got onto the conference call for her school and she read her story about her favorite playground to her teacher. I then worked with her on the online courses and it took me a couple of hours to get through them all so no lunch hour for me today. I will have to work right through it. She has some writing to do and writing is not for her right now. She loves math but the reading and writing is not currently something she likes to do. I am continuously reading and writing in front of her to see that it is something important but she has yet to taken it in.

During the rest of my workday in my bedroom/office, I turn off the lights and open the curtains and the window to let some fresh air come in. It is a beautiful day outside and I need to look at some greenery while I’m working away.

During the afternoon we took a drive. We passed by the outlets and it is a time capsule. Here are a couple of pictures that show as such.
Bunny decorations for Easter.

Clothes for Valentines day/Spring from way back in February/March

It’s now Thursday and the week has flown by for me. We have field day today for the little one. Not sure how we’ll do that at home but we will figure something out. Maybe she’ll just run around in the backyard. That’ll do it.
As for work, I have a product launching again. We are launching so many product this Spring, I truly do hope that it’s doing well for the company. For my jobs sake and everyone else’s. If you’re interested this is what we launched; EOS R RF24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM Lens Kit.

Looking outside my bedroom/office window and I see my dogwood tree is in bloom. I think the flowers are very pretty. The windows are open and so are the blinds. No shoes today, I am going barefoot. It is so warm and comfortable, I love this type of weather. Yes, it is a little muggy, but that is ok as the house is nice and dry.

Tonight I have my class for Project Agile Management. I have been studying and listening to webinars so that I can familiarize myself a lot more on this subject. Hopefully there is someone at work that I may use as a mentor for this type of work. Meanwhile, today’s webinar is called “The Myths (and Truths) of Agile Marketing: Keep Your Journey on Track.” I’m sure to be taking notes on this one.
Turns out the webinar was about how a business should use, Agile. My business already uses Agile and Scurm. If your business is in the need of a change and you’d like to go the Agile way check out the webinar from AdweekWebinars. It’s free and only a hour of your time.

This was dinner. Pasta with corn and ham along with BBQ pork chops. Delicious! Thank you mother-in-law for another wonderful dinner.

It’s Friday and I am very disappointed in myself. I should have woken up early and gone for a run, but I stayed in bed instead. It’s true that I had a long day yesterday with starting work early and then had my class in the evening, but darn it, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I did do some exercises to get my body moving before work but it wasn’t enough to my liking.

I saw this motivational quote that I would like to share and that I certainly need today “All it takes is believing in yourself.” I really like this quote. I oftentimes do not believe I can do what it is that I need to do. This simple quote really resonates to me.

So it is really muggy and hot in my bedroom/office. I have the windows open and all of the pollen is coming in. We tried to turn on the air-conditioner but it failed. The darn thing no longer works. Not to mention that it is very old, we got it used from my husband’s aunt and it worked for a couple of years, but now, in covid-19 season, we need to get a new one. Anyway, the pollen is so bad that I am having trouble seeing, and I’m also sneezing a lot. Plus, the neighbors are having their grass cut. So double the fun on the pollen side.

Watching the news and 67 people in NY state have passed away from covid-19 as of yesterday. This makes me sad. It is significantly low but its sill too much.
I have no motivation today. Usually, I get all of my work done by 3PM and then wait on the team members to send me last minute items to post on the website. Now I have plenty to do, but do not have the motivation to do it. Therefore, I am procrastinating and writing on my blog lol. Meanwhile, I am listening to podcasts on motivation with Rachel Hollis and Tony Robbins and its not helping at all. I have a conference call at 3PM today. Hopefully, speaking with people will perk me up. Maybe its because of the pollen and the fact that I’m having trouble seeing the screen. I need a new AC for my bedroom/office. Maybe just a fan will help. I’m really struggling here. I need some energy and I need it fast.

In the evening the UPS driver left us a bunch of presents from BJs. We now have our ziploc bags and our snacks. Basically all of our dried goods that they can ship. Our next delivery will be from our friend who goes to the store for us so we can get milk, yogurt and eggs. After we clean out all of the products from the corona virus, I change my clothes and get back to work. I have another product launch on Monday and need to finish all of it by tonight so that I don’t have to work on the weekend. As this weekend already has things for me to do. I have to weed and clear out the leftover leaves that are in the backyard. Hopefully we won’t find any ticks. My husband has already found one on his leg and another one on his arm the other day.

I finally finish work at 8:30PM and what should I do now? go for a run? I should really get a workout in today. I should go for a run. If I tell myself that enough times, I might just go and do it.

So, I went for a run. I feel so much better. All of those endorphins working in my brain is making me feel like a new person after that workout and a nice shower.

Stay safe!

This weekend was a somber one as my uncle passes away. Cried all my tears than decided that it was time to get to work. So my mother-in-law and I cleared out all of the weeds of the vegetable garden. It took us all day, but it got done. Now it is ready to be planted with tomatoes and squash, lettuce and collard greens, green beans, eggplant and peppers.

The next day I got back to work and planted some tall grasses in the front yard. We had found these in the vegetable garden and I replanted them in the front yard.

I am prepping the front yard for mulch as the yard needs it. It is a large yard and it needs about 10 yards of mulch in order for all of the flower beds to be covered.

I’ve looked at my sunflowers and they are growing. This is what they look like this week. If you’re interested is shown in this blog from last weekend. I hope you enjoy it.

My clematis are also doing well. They are climbing on the trellis and beautiful purple flowers are growing. I plated these a few years ago and they are doing very well. I bought a trellis for them and painted it white so it would match the trellises on the other side of the house. At this point it doesn’t even matter as the amount of clematis vines on the trellis is tremendous and you can barely see it.

Another nice thing that is blooming is my orange azalea bush. I transplanted this one from one side of the house to the another. Right now it is a type of anchor on the side of the house. We used to have a pear tree on that side but it died so now missing the azalea is the anchor. And soon I will have sunflowers to be all around the azalea.

You just wait until its all mulched. I will be broke and tired as it is not cheap and it is hard work. But it will be beautiful.

Sunday is for waffles. They were made by my husband and he made so many we have enough until lunch time.

I have an island with two trees and I would like to add some flowers to it. The trees are a cherry tree and a pussy willow. I’ve had a couple of daffodils on the island but its does not look so good as it’s only a couple of them. What do you think I should put here?

I don’t know how I did this, but my phone has a crack on it. I must have dropped it somewhere and now it has a hairline fracture that is driving me crazy. It is on the top right hand side and it is right over the battery percentage. This is going to drive me bananas.

It’s Monday morning and I feel like I have been hit with a ton of bricks. I feel very heavy and am having trouble concentrating. I did not get a workout in this morning as the weekend was a little rough. I thought I would be ok after taking care of raking leaves. But I am feeling like I did a ton of work and did not stretch afterwords. I may have overdone it this time.

I can’t believe I have been working from home since March 16th. Today is May 18th and so many things have changed at work from the department that I work in to the person I am now reporting to, it has all changed. I am however enjoying working from home. I get a lot done and I get to see the little one more often. I hope my company sees how well this works and will allow us to work from home a couple of day per week. That would be fantastic for me. Some people don’t like this working from home business, I guess it doesn’t motivate them to move around. But for me, it is great. I do however, miss seeing my coworkers and having one on one contact with people. Lunch especially can be a little challenging, eating by myself just makes me want to go back to work a little sooner.
My daughter and mother-in-law usually have their lunch after me, and they go outside during the warmer part of the day, so I am usually eating by myself in the kitchen and then I go outside and play with the little one for the remainder of my lunch hour.

Watching the news today and learned the number of hospitalization is down and so are intubations. The number of deaths yesterday however, was 107. Down, but still too many in NY state. We opened restaurants and other essential locations on the 15th. Hopefully we will open other locations soon. There are 38,224 cases of covid-19 for far in Suffolk county. Yesterday, 47 people have been discharged from the hospital and 6 people have passed away from covid-19 in Suffolk county, Long Island, NY.

Listening to the Elvis Duran replay channel and I’m learning about people who drink their beer in the shower. Is this really a thing? What is happening? These people need to get their buzz on as soon as they get home so they gotta do it in the shower?! That is too much for me to comprehend lol
I had a few minutes during lunch and read an article from the Zoe Report about anxiety and overthinking and how to deal with it. If you’re interested: “How To Stop Yourself From Overthinking, According To A Psychologist.” I was an interesting read. It talks about ruminating and what it means. Psychologist Kranich defines rumination as “the process of repetitively playing negative thoughts in our minds, like a hamster stuck on a wheel.” My damn hamster gets stuck on its wheel many times.

Just talked to my cousin, and learned that my uncle is not doing good at all. He may have days to live. Cancer got him. It went from his pancreas to his lungs to his liver.

It’s Tuesday and all I can think about is my uncle, cousins and my poor aunt. I think she is the one who is getting hit the hardest. I’ve told my father about my uncle and to let my mom know gently as he is her only brother and she likes him very much. I don’t know how she’s going to take it but I’m sure it won’t be a good one for her. It is a very sad day for me.

As for work, we have another product launch and I am so busy that I don’t even have lunch. And I may only take a break for dinner and continue working till late. I’ve only received content to post on the site this afternoon for tomorrow’s launch. We generally request content two weeks prior to a launch so that we ensure that all gets on the site properly and in case we have any sort of emergency where we have to drop everything and tackle that emergency. As of now, the emergency is the launch. It’s going to be a long day.

So I finish dinner and get back to my laptop and get to work. I keep working until 8PM. And I am tired. I’ve been listening to podcasts from Rachel Hollis to keep me motivated as I work. She is the author or Girl, Wash Your Face. I loved that book. It kept me motivated and got me to do a lot more at home and at work. She says to imagine the best part of yourself. Either it be to meet Oprah or imagine you are a famous writer, a published author, a Manager at your firm, etc. Write down the 10 goals that you want to achieve. Write them as if it already happened. Very powerful, I think.
All this talk gave me motivation to go for a run. So in the basement I went and on the treadmill I was for about an hour watching “Good Girls” on Netflix. Then I took a nice hot shower. It was late in the evening that I had to blow dry my hair. I then prepared the coffee for the next day and went to bed. Of course since my run I was all hyped up and had some trouble getting to sleep. But I got to sleep and slept well. No bad dreams today. Only blissful, tired from my run, type of sleep.

I woke up feeling a little sore, guess my late run wasn’t the best of ideas. I should have woken up early this morning and do my run then, instead of last night. But hey, I was inspired last night to get on a sweat session on my treadmill. I still have to wake up early today as I have a product launch and since all of the content was sent last minute, I have to get to work early to get it all in before 9AM. If I can, of course. It’s a lot of content to add and update. If you’re interested this is what we launched; imageRUNNER ADVANCE DX 6780i.

Watching the news and learned the number of hospitalizations, intubations and new cases are all down. The number or deaths from yesterday however, is 112 in NY state. The Bronx has the most cases. Still too much! Please be careful out there everyone. Wash your hands, stay away from people and if you must go out wear a mask and gloves if you can. Stay safe!

My munchkin drew a picture with daddy and it is now on our font door. A rainbow and a thank you to our essential workers. They are planning on creating a large one out of cardboard and placing it by the mailbox for all to see.

I’m in the need of some more motivation so I continue go back to Rachel Hollis how to choose joy. I really like Rachel and her advise. I feel like she speaks to me and only me. Like she is my bestie.

So that is it, my uncle has passed away. He was one of my favorites, he was always a happy guy and funny. He always used to joke around with me and play with me as a kid. I will always have fond memories of him. He was the one that gave me my favorite teddy bear that I still have that decorates my adult bedroom.

I don’t know what else to do but have a drink and celebrate my uncles’ life and scan all of the photos that I have of him and his girls and place them on facebook so I and my cousins can reminisce on them. These photos are from my third birthday party and a snow day back in Portugal. We were living in Folhadosa back then. This is close to Coimbra. This is where my mother was born and where I lived until I was was about five years old. Looking back at my picture, I had very chubby cheeks, just like my daughter. And great cousins! I loved going to my cousins house and be with them. They were my favorite people in the world. I miss them very much. Thank goodness for facebook where we can keep in touch.

In the evening I had a drink for my uncle. He loved wine and if I can recall, he used to make red wine. I don’t know if it was any good as I was too little to appreciate those things back then. So, I had a couple of cocktails in his honor. I’m not used to drinking so two of them put me right out. Good night!

It’s Thursday and I can not sleep so I get up early and go for a walk. In the treadmill of course, it’s 4AM its still dark out. I live in a safe town, but still, its 4AM. I’ll go wake up the roosters now.
As for work, I am swamped. I have so much to do and so many things to update on the site I don’t even have time for lunch. My little one goes outside with grandma during the afternoon so she can get some much needed fresh air.

In the evening I have my Scrum class. It’s called Agile Project Management and we are concentrating on Scrum. It it a long class; from 6PM to 10PM. I learn a lot and jot down a lot of notes. I will, of course, have to re-write those notes as they are really sloppy and I probably won’t remember what I wrote if I look back at them and things aren’t fresh in my memory. I may have had too much coffee because now I can’t sleep. I am up until 2AM just mindlessly looking through the pretty pictures on Instagram.

I wake up on Friday feeling somber. Today is my bereavement day and am off from work, but I still need to get the munchkin onto her morning conference call with her teacher and get her on her noon call with her other teacher. The rest of the day is a somber one.

This weekend is so warm and great. I love this weather and what it represents, Gardening! It is a ton of work but I love to plant flowers and plan out what it’s going to look like. Today we cleaned out leaves that were part of the mounds that I have in the front of the house. My mother-in-law had the machine and I had the rake and a cultivator to move the pile of leaves out of the front yard. After three hours of doing this, we were beat and took a break. My mother-in-law was exhausted and called it a day. Meanwhile, I went to the sides plants that we already have and transplanted them. We have a bush that has red sticks and green sticks and they are overgrown so I took out one of the roots and placed it on the other side of the mounds that we have. That particular side had a nice bush but it somehow died and we never plated anything else there. So today was the day.
I’ve also transplanted a bunch of day lilies. I had a bunch on one side of the house and in a planter. I took some from one side of the flower bed to another flower bed. This day lily is more of a filler than anything else. It is pretty in the middle of the summer as it will bloom an orange flower. It’s not very pretty right now, but it will be once they are grown and there is mulch.

My climatis is growing very well and my roses are also growing. I wonder when the roses will bloom.

Speaking of blooming, the other plants, lily of the valley, that I have are already blooming and they are very pretty.

I notice that the sunflowers that I planted a two weeks ago are already coming up. They are on one of the flower beds and are next to the orange azelia. These sunflowers don’t grow too tall and should make a nice addition to the flower bed. Hopefully they will bloom after the azelia so I will always have something blooming in the garden.

Meanwhile, in the house, all of the windows are open and the ceiling fan is on to make things cool. My husband worked way too hard this week and he is indoors today in the cool air watching TV, probably Netflix. You see, he works outdoor everyday of the week and he works hard. His body has taken a toll as he does road construction and it is hard work. He needs his rest during the weekends.
He made us a nice and hardy breakfast of bacon, home made bread and an omelet. The omelet had onions, spinach and cheese. It is so good.

Breakfast is served.

On Sunday we call that nice couple to do the shopping for us. We are so grateful for them, I can’t even tell you how grateful we are. They are willing to risk their health for us and that is fantastic for us as we are all at high risk. If we get sick, we are going to get intubated for sure. It’s already happened to me in the past as well as my mother-in-law. When we had our children, we both became very sick starting off with pneumonia and then our lungs collapsed and we had to be intubated. I was on a respirator for about a month and then intubated for another month. For all I know, I already had the virus. The doctors couldn’t figure out where it came from nor what it was exactly, but they sure knew how to fix it. I am alive and breathing because of the Stony Brook Hospital doctors and Nurses. For them, I am thankful.

So when the nice couple brought our groceries, we tipped them very generously, and we got to work. We put on our gloves, got some bleach and got to cleaning. All of the items in boxes and containers got a bleach cleandown and put into “quarantine” in the basement. In a couple of days we will take out the items and clean them again so we may use the to eat. I got yelled at a couple of times because I did not handle the items properly. You can never be too careful, my husband yelled. After that, we all took showers to take the any of the remaining virus away.

After lunch I went outside with my little one and we had a conversation about Sonic the Hedgehog. She loves these characters and wants to talk about them all day long. She wishes they were real and she would play with them. I then asked her what is her favorite part about school and she said recess! Of course, what was I thinking. That is the best part! The I asked, what is the next best part and she said art! She loves to draw and color. I thank asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. And I was thinking, since she likes to color and do artistic things so much, that she would like to be a painter or an artist. But, no. She wants to work as a pediatrician in the children’s hospital. She then wanted to talk about Sonic again, so we did that for the rest of the afternoon. We then came in and had a snack then played playdogh for a few hours. And this was my day. I wanted to get out there and take care of the garden, but being with my little one was a better choice.

In the evening I studied for my Scrum course that is coming up next week. I can’t believe how quickly the year is going. One day its January 1st, the next is quarantine time then its time for my course still in quarantine. This will be my first full online course. It is after work on Thursdays for 4 hours. I hope I can stay awake and pay attention. When I was in the classroom, I think I payed more attention than when I’ll be online. There are so many tabs that I can click on. All of my social media, my emails and shopping. I will need much discipline for this.

So here we are again, week number 9 of quarantine. Believe it or not, I’m enjoying working from home. My commute is awesome, I get to wear whatever, mainly jeans, and best of all, I get to be with my daughter for longer hours in the day and play and study with her. I could get used to this!

I had a wonderful mother’s day weekend. I got to relax and be with those I love. We played pokemonGo and had a nice bunch.

This Monday morning I got up early and helped my husband with some of his exercises. His back has been hurting him, so I help him with his stretching. Then I got myself a workout. For my workout, I was wearing a Suffolk County Community College shirt from back in the day when I used to run Cross Country. The shirt still fits! It’s a little old and falling apart at the sleeves, but it’s a good reminder of what I am capable of doing. Back then, we used to run for hours. Now, I’m on the treadmill for 45 minutes and out of breath lol.

So, more changes for me at my job. The person whom I was training for over a month is no longer going to be working with me. So, now I am part of the IT department and working on two extranet sites all by myself. What if I’m sick or need a vacation day you ask? My boss said that that’s ok, we’ll work through it. All we have to do is just plan it out and it will be fine. The boss also said to let her know if I get overwhelmed to let her know.
No way jose! I just barely made it, there’s no way I will be inundated with my new job….I hope! Please God don’t let me screw this one up. It looks like they are ok with letting everyone go, please don’t let it be me this go around…I’m going to go have a bottle of wine for dinner!

So this was my dinner.

Kidding, this was my dinner. Spaghetti with vegetables and orange chicken. Delicious with a glass of white wine. Thank you grandma for making a delicious meal!

It’s now Tuesday and it has been the longest week yet. With my old boss being let go and now my coworker being taken to a different department and me working on the sites by myself I am feeling lucky. Lucky, that I still have a job and that I am the only person who knows how to work on two sites together. They are not difficult, but they sure are time consuming.
Today I have a conference call with my daughter’s teachers to see about her goals and how she is doing in school. I think she is doing just fine. She is now starting to read and her math skills are impeccable. We need to get her to start writing more and doing better punctuation. But for a her age, she is doing fantastic. And her teachers say so as well. My baby is going into the 1st grade!

Watching the news and 195 died yesterday due to the covid-19 virus in NY state. It’s up from the day before but we are significantly down in deaths. So they say. I think we are 195 too many in deaths from this terrible virus.

It’s Wednesday and what can I say about my Wednesday…what a disaster. I woke up before the roosters and helped my husband out with his stretches. Then got to the laptop and got some work done, since I had a last minute launch and many items to post on the site. I took a break and did a workout and took a quick shower only to get back to my bedroom/office to continue with my launch. This was the good part of my day. The bad part was the launch of the product. Nothing worked on the site. I didn’t have access to the backend systems and needed IT intervention. Wait, I’m IT now…so I needed help from my IT co-workers to help out. Then the other backend system did not connect properly and I needed to ask another set of IT people to take a look and make sure everything was aligned. This all took three hours to figure out, turns out I did not get to launch the product on my site. There is an overnight replication and that is all, we can’t do anything about that. We need to let it take its course. But wait, IT was able to negotiate the overnight replication to happen during the day. So then the item did launch hours and hours later.
Right after my quick lunch I find out there is another product launching tomorrow….surprise! Time to scramble again to get everything up on the website. But I’m keeping my cool…for now!
During all of this craziness, I wasn’t able to get into the conference call for my daughter this morning. I turned on the laptop and let her ride it out. With Grandmas supervision of course. I can’t let a little one to her own devices. I left the door to my bedroom/office open so I could work and hear the teacher at the same time. But, who am I kidding, I can’t listen to two conversations at the same time. That was a waste! Thank God Grandma was there, she was able to let me know what happened during the call. So, the little ones to do a show and tell to the teachers. They need to have an object and describe it to the teacher so they can guess what it is. This ought to be fun for the parents to prepare.

So its 6pm and guess what I’m still doing…yes, working. I need to post a lot more items on the site. There are not enough hours in the day to get it all done. I had a quick dinner with the family and back to the laptop I go. I worked until 8PM and then I called it a night. I put my laundry away and watched a show on Netlix for an hour. I have been watching “Impostors” on Netflix for the last month or two. I only watch it when I do my workout, otherwise I don’t have time to watch any shows. Between work and my little one, who has time for anything?
Anyway, back to the show, I really liked season one. It was exiting and fast paced. All of the suspence was great. Season 2 slowed down a bit in the beginning and it became a little boring and then it picked up again and I was getting really exited again. Only to find out, there is no Season 3. They cancelled the show. Now I have to find another show to watch as I am doing my workout. What do you think I should watch?

Thursday is a little bit more of the same as Wednesday, woke up early to help out my husband. And then I went back to bed and read a book for my next class. I will be taking a class for “Scrum” its part of the project management agile process. As for work, I had another last minute product launch for both extranet sites and I have to scramble to place the product and its contents on the sites. Also, there are two conference calls this morning for my little one. It’s 11AM and I feel like a clown juggling many balls. I feel like I am going to burn out soon.

Watching the news and learned that the number of hospitalizations and intubations is down. New cases is a little bit up today but overall it is down. Unfortunately, 166 people have passed due to the covid-19 virus. The virus keeps on spreading and people keep on dying. We continue to be stuck at home and continue to be scared of this virus. At least I am.

After lunch was more work, then, I hit a wall. By 3:30, I couldn’t do it anymore. I drank an energy drink, took a break, put on the radio and I kept on feeling like I had burned out for the day.

Its now 7PM and I have just finished work for the day. I feel so burnt. I hope I have the energy tomorrow to get up and do what I need to do. For now, I am going continue to read my book for my class that is starting next week. This is going to be my first online course. The class is on Thursdays from 6pm to 10pm for 3 weeks. It is going to be jam packed with information. If work keeps up like this plus a course, I’m surely to burn out more often. So I studied until bed time.

It’s Friday and I got my workout in. I am thankful that we have a treadmill that I can have a workout in. I spoke to some of my coworkers and learned there were more people who were let go. This is a scary time for business.

It is a nice day out today and I have my windows in my bedroom/office open. And we are having our grass thatched this afternoon. It smells like fresh cut grass. Just like how spring should be. I love the spring, all of the trees are flowering the flowers blooming. It’s not too hot, not too cold. It is just perfect for me. I went outside and played with my little one for a little while during my lunch hour. It was absolutely gorgeous. The weekend is to be just as beautiful. I can’t wait to get out there and get gardening.