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Women Worth Knowing…What’s to Know?

the outside lane

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get women to fill out the WWK survey? Apparently, a lot of you lovelies are shy and retiring. Until you have one or two of Kimmie’s appletinis in you, anyway. Then, you are one handheld video camera away from your own reality television show. Oh, the things that used to happen in Suzanne’s house!

Yes, WWK has been quiet for quite a long time. No, it is not for any lack of interest on my part. Momentum slowed, and I am trying to stir it back up again. I have been saving one profile, though, and I’ll be posting that soon. It’s a favorite of mine, mainly because it has to do with cosmetics and a successful, self-made business woman.

In the meantime, if you still haven’t filled out your survey, come on! 😉

2the9s, Uncategorized

Wrapping Jewelry

the outside lane

image

We are packing to move. Ugh. But in the midst of the ugh, there are always a few opportunities for creativity. I got creative with my jewelry box today. If you’re like me, you love untangling necklaces about as much as you enjoy reaching up inside a raw chicken to pull out the innards. The idea of having to pack all of my necklaces, one by one, so that they didn’t tangle was making my teeth hurt, so I had to find a work-around.

I am fortunate to have a really nice jewelry box. Two Christmases ago, my mother decided I needed a three way mirror and a grand jewelry box, so she gifted me with a 6′ tall, rotating box with 3 mirrored doors. The doors open to create a 3 way mirror. Inside in each door are earring racks, a bracelet rack, and necklace hooks. Inside each cabinet is a ring keeper, another set of necklace hooks, and small cabinets for jewelry that doesn’t fit in the rest.

While most of my stuff is only costume, every piece (right down to a ring out of a literal bubble gum machine) has some sentimental value, and I don’t want to lose any of it. And I also don’t want to have to pack earrings by pairs, or sort through the mess of studs that might fall when the whole jewelry box is moved.
So…

Saran Wrap and packing tape.

I bought Press’n Seal Saran Wrap and wrapped each section of the inner door and cabinet separately, then put packing tape along the edges to hold it in place. On the earring section, I put the wrap on sticky side down. That way, if an earring is jogged out of it’s rack, it will stick where it is. Everywhere else, I used sticky side up. I really don’t want the gunk on the jewelry. On the necklaces, I strapped packing tape across the top, middle and bottoms of the longest strands, so that should hold them all in place nicely.

The move isn’t for a few more days, but I’ll let you know how it works next week. In the meantime, UGH!

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Wearing it Well

the outside lane

Kim requested that I start doing a daily What I Wore, again. I will start posting about my closet again soon, but I am in process of a physical move right now, and I only have about a tenth of my wardrobe available. So unless you want to hear about the same 3 pairs of pants, and same 9 shirts for the next 3 weeks… Also, I am very, very cold, so all of my current outfits include the same pair of warm boots (leather slouch boots with a 2.5 inch heel, embellished with straps and buckles) and the same black, polar fleece vest. Cold!

I wish someone would invent warm, pretty gloves, thin enough to type through.

Packing has made me maudlin about my wardrobe, again. Too much. Excessive. Wasteful. Too much, certainly, but in all fairness to my Blue Light Special loving heart, since culling out the closet last year, I wear just about everything I own in a decent rotation. I’m not excessive or wasteful. I’m just messy. I am definitely messy.

Lancient History

Superiors

the outside lane

Since graduating college, I have worked for eight companies for six months or more. I was recruited back to three different companies, twice each. I was promoted at every one of those companies. I have also had three full-time positions that lasted only, or fewer than three months. I have had a lot of bosses.

With the exception of three (two managers and one indirect manager), I can honestly say that no matter how strange some of them were (the one who always wanted to show me her new underwear–while she was wearing them, the one who wanted me to find his wife a gynecologist, the one who was just blindingly stupid) I generally worked for decent-to-very-good people. So, if you happen to be reading this, unless you are one of the bosses who a) threw a book at my head b) suggested to me that I was “spiritually retarded” and told me that if I prayed more, God would point out other people’s errors to me so that I could correct them ahead of time (yes, really), or c) physically assaulted me with your crotch, I would probably buy you a cup of coffee.

If you are Charlcye or Melissa, I would definitely buy you coffee, and would insist on getting you a brownie to go with it–because you two are my favorite bosses of all time.

Which reminds me that I had one other boss whose presence I DNW at my coffee table, and that was a woman who displaced one of my favorite bosses of all time, and who had beast feet.

I have another new job. My ninth company since graduating college. This time, I am working for a dear, dear family friend, who is such a family friend, she is really family. The best part of the job (so far) has been the no-personal-learning-curve part. It was a surprising relief to walk into the office on the first day and realize I didn’t have to act a certain way. I could be my absolute self. No working out whether or not my sense of humor would be appreciated. No worrying about whether or not my look was going to be satisfactory. No wondering if my boss would like me. (I’m still in those throes with my suite-mates, but there is a big difference between worrying about a suite-mate liking you, and worrying about whether or not the boss is going to like you.)

I feel…good. Totally good.

I am generally over-cautiously optimistic, and am always waiting for the hammer to fall, the other shoe to drop, the bottom to fall out. I wait for the worst with a positive attitude, knowing I’ll survive and get on with life, but I am always a little afraid that as soon as someone gets to know me too well, they will gag on my me-ness and start gathering the villagers to burn the monster (or tell me I am spiritually retarded and obviously oppressed by a demonic spirit of rebellion, and not a good example of godlike nature. Or tell me that, like David’s brothers, I look perfect and am everything everyone could want in a leader, but that there must be something wrong on the inside, prompting my internal iPod to skip to Goody Two Shoes. Subtle innuendo follows and all that. Not that I let my last year at The Ministry That Shall Not Be Named affect my self-esteem at all. Vipers.)

That was a long sentence, so I’m starting a new paragraph.

I loved my last job. I loved my coworkers. I enjoyed the work. I enjoyed most of my clients. I loved the location, the building, the fact that I could get my favorite coffee across the street…I loved my boss. I even really liked my boss’s boss. If they could have paid me more, and promised me that the in-tact team would never change (and that I would never be robbed at gunpoint) I would have happily stayed in my chair until retirement. And if my current boss hadn’t opened up my current position, I would still be there. It took something really special for me to feel okay about leaving.

The short-term position I had before taking my Bank Job really stripped a lot out of me. The job prior, from which I had been laid off, had worn me down to nearly nothing. I had very little confidence left when that manager was finished with me–and don’t even get me started on what being laid off and having to take unemployment did for my self-esteem. Dang. I needed someone like Melissa, in a position where I could have little victories every day, to rebuild my professional health.

I am happy to say that I am really happy. And I hope I don’t have to change jobs again for a very, very, very long time.

And I want to shout out to Charlcye and Melissa because what they did as managers was inspire me to work smarter, actively appreciate me and recognize my contribution, and make me feel like I could be my best. Aside from them being really good people, they were/are really good leaders. I was fortunate to learn from them.

P.S. I’m back. 😉

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It Gets Better

the outside lane

No, it really doesn’t.

We have all kinds of campaigns aimed at convincing children that bullying stops, character assassinations decrease, and that in the magical world of the grown-up, we are free to be ourselves without judgment.  Lies.

The truth is apparent in our political advertising, our entertainment reporting, our need for fair hiring practices, and our desperate need for corporate harassment and diversity training courses.  It doesn’t get better, you just get better at deflecting, ignoring, responding and redirecting with age and maturity.

I am lately dismayed by a fat hating, body shaming piece in Marie Claire (no link because I don’t want to give it hits), truly shocking personal attacks in political campaigns, and am feeling particularly angry over a blogger’s hypocrisy when it comes to outing gay celebrities.  See, we can’t keep kids from bullying each other to death because adults are the worst perpetrators of all.

I don’t complain about the ignorance or idiocies of youth because we’ve all been there.  We have all been jackhole teenagers.  But I rail against adults who still think it is cute to act like fools.

Let’s tell the truth.  “It” doesn’t get better, but “you” can.  You can grow and mature, and you can rise above the street juice and be part of an adult world where you can start making a difference in molding children.  In a few generations, with enough effort, maybe “it” will get better.  Until then?  You gotta just hang in there and keep riding that pig.