Category: work

March recap

March was obviously kind of low-key, because I haven’t felt the need to post anything since the monthly picture.

Today they had their 15 year well visits, and I was excited to see how tall they were. I assumed Oliver and I were the same height, 5’10”.

I was right and wrong. We are the same height, but we are 5’9″.

This has shaken me to my core. I’m actually fine with getting older and shrinking. I am not okay with the idea that I was never 5’10”. So we’re going to go with shrinking. It’s fine.

And Miles and Linus are only half and a quarter inch behind Oliver, and they’re all within a pound in weight, which is wild. I don’t think they’ve ever been this similar since they were born! (I was going to look to see how long they were at birth, and apparently this is not documented anywhere. Not on this blog, not in my medical records, not in any emails. Nowhere. Huh.)

My sister to the rescue: Her nephews were 16.5, 17, and 17 inches long. Which means, yes, they are (relatively) closer in height and weight now than they were at birth. Wild.

And boy, is it true that they just stretch out like taffy at this age. In the past two years, Linus gained almost 9 inches in height but less than a pound in weight. Crazy.

So let’s see, what else happened in May?

Let’s see. Ziggy was cute. No change there.

Oliver and Linus got haircuts. Zzz.

I made a pretty skirt! Oh that’s nice. It’s the Upton skirt by Cashmerette, this floral embroidered mesh came from Joann’s, of all places. I used a pale pink satin for the underlayer. (Thank you Ren for the runway photo from the hotel hallway.)

The most exciting part of the month was going up to Natchitoches for my 30th high school reunion. (Yes, I graduated at the tender age of 7.)

It was so much fun. Really nice to reconnect with friends I haven’t seen in a while. Bittersweet, though, because this is when the boys would be getting their acceptance letters if they’d applied. I mean, obviously I’m glad they’re not leaving me, but it’s hard not to want the same experience I had, when it was so life-changingly wonderful. And the new dorms are very nice.

There was lots of soccer too. A tournament in Baton Rouge where Oliver got the only goal for their team all weekend. Then another game last weekend where Oliver got the only goal. This weekend is another tournament, but I guess you’ll have to wait for the next monthly update to hear about it!

I also made a stuffed bunny for a mom in the neighborhood who lost her baby daughter earlier this year. I felt honored that she trusted me with the task. It came out cute, I think. She was happy, which is the important thing.

The jasmine is blooming, which is the only good thing about spring. Well, and daylight savings time (ending? beginning? I can never remember.) but I need to get a new grill because the one we had fell apart.

I read a good book, I recommend it.

I got to have lunch with a work friend.

The boys ate a lot of saltines.

Stephanie chopped off her hair for St. Baldrick’s. Tragically, I forgot to wear my giant medal.

24 years after graduating from LSU with a friggin general studies degree, I paid off my student loans! Wheeee!

And yeah, that’s about it.

Oh, except starting on April 3, I will be on a new team at work for three months, working on Tumblr support. I’m very excited for the change of scenery!

January in review

How on earth is it still January? I feel like this has been the longest month ever.

Started out flying home from the Dominican Republic, and finally getting Ziggy back home. We missed him a lot. He…did not seem to miss us very much at all. I guess he had fun. He was hoarse from all the barking (or something, maybe a mild case of kennel cough, the vet said, he’s all better now in any case.)

“You could have left me there.”

Soccer started right back up, and then on Sunday the 8th, we took the boys to their very first Saints game ever. It was also the first time they’d ever been inside the Superdome. It was a not-great game, but we had fun anyway. Except we walked to the dome from the ferry and it was sprinkling so by the time we actually got to the game, we were all kind of wet and cold. No big deal.

Later that evening, I flew to Austin for a work meetup. Got in close to midnight, just a few minutes before my birthday!

Woke up the next morning, said hello to my colleagues, picked up a chocolate croissant from the Whole Foods down the road, worked, was surprised (sort of, I mean, I kind of demanded it) by a beautiful cake, had a nice lunch and later a nice dinner. This was my fourth work meetup on a birthday!

The rest of the week was more working, yummy food, bonding with coworkers, getting a spur-of-the-moment tattoo with Vanessa, bowling, puzzle assembling, scooter riding, renting a Tesla with Beckett and Karen, driving a Tesla, visiting our friend Elizabeth and finally meeting her daughter. I gave her a quilt I made her with bees and she seemed to like it.

IYKYK

Back home, more soccer, then another tattoo the next week (that I had originally scheduled for my birthday, but the had to push back a week because of the work trip) and more soccer and more soccer.

pink hydrangea

This past weekend was the end of school soccer, and the very last game was between the freshmen and sophomores. Under Miles’s coaching, the freshmen won! And I got some great pics of Coach Miles.

maybe my favorite picture ever.

I did some sewing. Made some shorts, bought more fabric I don’t need, but that’s okay. We had a bit of an issue with mice, but I think we resolved it. I don’t ever need to see tiny mouse bodies stuck in traps ever again.

Also I have someone cleaning the house again and it’s wonderful and it really is good for my stress levels because, let’s face it, it’s not exactly my forte.

I wrapped up the month by making a king cake yesterday. On to February!

Goings on and whatnot

I never want the monthly pic to be the only thing I post on my blog, but it looks like October went by without anything else, so I am going to make up for that now. Buckle in.

Just kidding, it hasn’t been that eventful.

Let’s see, the last thing I posted about was my new coat, which I have had several opportunities to wear. Which brings us to topic #1, my first work trip since January 2020. Automattic has gotten very very large since our last Grand Meetup in late 2019, so they decided to have smaller division meetups instead. So I spent last week with almost 500 of my colleagues in Denver.

It was so nice to see them, but quite bittersweet not to see my other coworkers and friends who I might never see in person again! Don’t really like to think about that.

A truly random assortment of pics:

Let’s see, what else? Oliver went to homecoming, his brothers did not.

I made a hoodie dress. It’s exquisitely cozy.

I got another tattoo! Well, actually, I got two more since I last posted about tattoos. I hadn’t get posted about the one I got in August. I had been wanting one of star jasmine, because I love it, but I don’t really know a tattoo artist in New Orleans whose style I really wanted. Until someone I know posted a picture of a tattoo she’d gotten by Mecca at Hell or High Water Tattoo, and I immediately booked an appointment.

The inspiration/tattoo:

And I loved it so much I went back for a magnolia.

And I love that so much I made an appointment for my birthday, but I won’t spoil what I’m getting.

Everyone is asking “are you doing a sleeve” and I am a dorky middle aged soccer mom, I’m just getting flowers I like without much of a plan.

Speaking of flowers, the camellias started blooming again.

Ziggy remains cute.

Halloween was fun because I got to give out candy for the first time ever. I made a shirt to wear.

Well, I guess that’s it? School soccer has started, but the first two games happened while I was in Denver, so I’m looking forward to seeing them play this weekend. Linus scored a goal at their first game!

2020, don’t let the door hit you on the way out

This is going to be a weird year-end recap. Let’s see.

January

I got to go to Lisbon! Thank god we planned our meetup for January, or my only trip (outside of Louisiana, anyway) in 2020 never would have happened. Also I turned 45 there. (My third birthday meetup since I started at Automattic.)

The boys finished up their season playing soccer for the school team, which ended in winning the championship! I adore this picture of Linus.

February

Kiki came to visit! Thank god. I’m so glad I got to see her this year at least once. We ate a lot and took a road trip to Alexandria and Natchitoches for Linus’s archery tournament.

Later in the month was Mardi Gras! Where we were probably all spreading COVID like crazy! I made a fun Mardi Gras dress. Maybe I’ll get to wear it again in 2022.

Also I got a new wardrobe from IKEA. I love it.

March

Well it started out okay. I had raised over $2000 for St. Baldrick’s and I was so ready for my hair chop scheduled for the end of the month. Yeah, that still hasn’t happened. I did get a haircut, but nothing too drastic. (You can still donate, you know!)

Friendship day at the beginning of March. Probably we were all spreading COVID like crazy here too.

I took two days off to spend with Linus and Miles, just like I’d done the year before. We ate lunch and escaped from rooms.

Two days before Oliver and I were supposed to have our day off, I was sitting at soccer practice waiting for the boys when I got a message from the school. It was going to be closed for the next two days because there was a possible connection to a COVID case. You know what happened next.

The rest of March was a lot of sewing, cooking, and watching movies.

Click here for the fun part of 2020

Lisbon recap!

It’s been a week since I got home so I’d better post about my trip before I forget everything!

I left on Tuesday, and flew the long leg with Deborah and Erica, which was nice, since I had a five hour layover at Newark. We spent that time doing our nails and I got my boots shined and okay this part isn’t exciting.

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Actually, shiny boots are kind of exciting.

We got to Lisbon Wednesday morning and got a tiny coffee and my first pastel de nata at the airport. Got to the airbnb, but the owner was running late meeting us so we stocked up on groceries in the store below our apartment (very handy, that!) Once we were in and settled, we…well, I don’t remember. Took a nap, I think. I was exhausted. Mahangu arrived and we went to walk around and get some dinner.

We walked down to the Time Out market, where I had another pastel de nata (this one warm from the oven and even tastier than the airport Starbucks one. Go figure.) We noticed flocks of Uber Scooters around, so Beckett, Mahangu, and I hopped on them while Erica decided it was best not to. We found a flat plaza and rode around and around and around.

Then dinner up a hill. It was yummy. There was ham and cheese and various other good food.

The next day was my birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went to the bigger grocery store to get more provisions, and ended up having a very unsatisfying breakfast there. But we did get me a candy birthday cake! And we got followed around the store by security people. Turns out you’re not supposed to take photos in grocery stores. Weird. And then outside the grocery store was a pretty yellow tiled wall, so I made Mahangu take pictures of us all.

I’m a rebel and took this picture

Back to the apartment where we got some work done. We were going to have lunch but then we decided to wait for Karen, who was arriving that afternoon. And by the time she got there we just waited for dinner. But that was fine because we had lots of ham and cheese and other delicious snacks to eat.

We had a call early in the evening with some other colleagues around the world, and then it was time to eat again!

Dinner was at a lovely restaurant on top of a hill. We had to climb a lot of stairs to get to it. We dined on delicious Mozambiquan-Portuguese food. Happy birthday was sung to me in Portuguese. We walked around some more after dinner.

Friday was a work day – we left to get lunch at the Time Out market. I had a prego steak sandwich. So yum. Later, Erica and Mahangu and I went to the Benfica game! It was pretty cool, even though I knew the boys weren’t exactly happy with me for going to a professional game without them. I did bring them presents back, at least. Benfica won, thank goodness, but it was close. After the game we got these amazing pork sandwiches (bifana) and Erica and I split the most amazing waffle with Nutella on it.

Saturday we worked. And walked around some more between working. I found my favorite book in Portuguese at a book market and of course bought it. We also found a fabric store (shocking) where I…bought fabric.

After that we went up to this elevator that basically just goes up a hill. The line was too long to wait, but someone told us about a free elevator we could use that didn’t have a line. No brainer! The views were beautiful. Didn’t hurt that it was a gorgeous, sunny day.

We ordered in for dinner that night. And Erica and I finished a puzzle Beckett brought.

Sunday we worked some more, and in the afternoon, Beckett and Mahangu and I went to a different part of the city where he was meeting up with someone. Beckett and I went on this little gondola thing and then over to a mall that was like Black Friday packed. It was nuts. But it had a ginormous grocery store in it as well, and I do love a grocery store. Picked up some souvenirs to bring home (but didn’t take pictures, of course.)

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Beckett on the gondola. So pretty!

Monday we decided to bring our work on the road. We took a train to Sintra, which is west of Lisbon. There’s a palace (Pena Palace). We had a driver bring us around, which was a great idea since it was cold and VERY STEEP. After the palace, we had lunch and the driver gave me a birthday present! (I mean, like I didn’t tell him my birthday was a few days prior? Do you even know me?)

Another pastel de nata
Typical.
Some cod dish
That’s a palace down there
Cork tree!
My birthday present
The westernmost spot of Europe!

After working for a little while at a coworking spot, the driver took us on a very winding and nauseating ride out to the coast, where you can stand on the westernmost spot of Europe. It was cold and windy, but beautiful!

We headed back to our apartment after that and got all packed up. Karen and Beckett and I had 5:20am flights, which was horrible. I slept for about an hour and a half, and then traveled for 24 hours and then made it home. Hooray!

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Got a frankfurter in the Frankfurt airport.

It was a great, productive trip. Lisbon is beautiful! But thank goodness I practiced for the hills by power walking at Orangetheory. Those hills are no joke!

01/12/2020

Beckett and I took an aerial tram ride while waiting while our coworker had a meeting. Another gorgeous day!

01/07/2020

Flew to Lisbon, and met up with my teammates Beckett and Erica in Newark, where we had a five hour layover. I had jackets made for our team, since we have a new name (HappEx, which is short for Happiness Experience.) (Happiness is our support team.) I am very tired.

01/06/2020

All packed up for my work trip to Lisbon tomorrow. I know, you don’t have to tell me, my job is the worst. Oh yeah, and I’ll be there for my birthday. So rough, I tell ya!

2019 Grand Meetup – the details

Usually I just write one big massive post about the GM, but I’m not mentally ready for that yet (still tired) but I do want to highlight the amazing details that went into it. Kudos to our amazing events team!

Mostly, it centered around the Automattic creed, which you can read in full here.

It was always handy, in the form of the room key cards…

And more:

2018 in review

It’s time to look back at 2018 before too much of 2019 has gone past and I forget all about it.

It was a busy year! And I definitely didn’t blog enough, especially at the end of the year, where I had to rely too much on Instagram posts for my recaps. I’ll try to fix that for 2019. But my mantra for this year is “stop trying to do everything” which I’m afraid might turn into “turn into a lazy blob” so 2020’s mantra might need to revolve around moderation. We’ll see. Anyhoo, onto the year’s recap:

January

I turned 43. Had a nice day.

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It (sorta, not really, but close enough for the boys) snowed!

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But the best part of January was going with Steph to see My Favorite Murder live. What a fantastic night that was. Eeeek!!! The best part, of course:

 

Meeting and hugging the hosts of the show, Karen and Georgia, and getting a picture. Eeek! So fun.

And then, at the end of January, Linus said something to me that would change the course of the entire year. He said, “Mama, I think I want to play soccer again.”  Read More

My desk

I have been utilizing the services of a coach at work to help me with time management and today we talked about the state of my desk and how it affects my productivity and stress levels. So my assignment at the end of today’s session was to clean off my desk, take a picture of it, and blog about it. (I was going to post it on one of our internal blogs at work, but someone did a “show your desk” thread a few months ago, so I figured I’d post it here instead. I mean, if you want to show a picture of your desk in the comments, feel free!) The blogging part is for accountability, and if you look in the menu up at the top and see all those 365 projects I did way back in the day, external validation is a powerful motivator for me. (Words of affirmation are my love language, yo.)

(Also gifts.)

I’m getting off topic.

Voila!

Somehow it looks way neater in real life. But trust me that is as clean as it gets. Hooray!

Next step: Every morning, I will spend five minutes straightening it up before starting my day. (Hopefully won’t be too necessary, but just in case.)

PS Cleaning up my desk had a beneficial side effect: that Amazon gift card had $15 on it!

Grand Meetup 2018 – Orlando!

Before too much time passes, I have to blog about this year’s Grand Meetup! It was my fifth, can you believe it? (In a way, it’s my sixth at Automattic, but I didn’t go to the 2013 one – but I was on trial and I sure did work my butt off while it happened.)

I hate to say it, but I wasn’t as excited about the GM this year as I have been in the past. I mean, Orlando? It’s hot, whine, whine. One of the greatest things about the GM for the past four years has been the weather. Actual fall weather! In the mountains! And the forecast for Orlando was hotter than New Orleans, bleh. And the only mountain around was Space Mountain, and I wasn’t going to be going near that. And I wouldn’t go on it even if I could (THANKS DAD FOR SCARRING ME FOR LIFE.)

On the bright side, the flight was under two hours and direct! That almost made up for the weather. I mean, not having to take two long flights to Vancouver and then sit on a bus for two hours to get to a (granted, gorgeous, luxurious mountain) resort was amazing. And I did sew all of the clothes I wore (with the exception of my bathing suit and workout clothes and one team t-shirt) so that was stressful fun.

But once I got to the airport in Orlando and started seeing friends, and then to the hotel, well, you know, it was awesome. The whole thing.

We arrived on Saturday and the opening party was around the pool at the hotel. We got fancy water bottles and fun buttons to attach to our lanyards. Needless to say, there was plenty of food and drink and lots of people to catch up with. Meanwhile, back in New Orleans, the boys were at a soccer game, and Miles scored his first goal of competitive soccer! This mama got pretty weepy at having missed it. (Thanks beer!) Sigh. But still, a great night.

Work started the next day – we spent it with our team. Actually, I spent the whole week working with my team, but some people spent other days in classes or working on projects. And then we did have some downtime for socializing. Like in the party suites. And at Disney Springs. Even went to Orangetheory one day.

But the VERY BEST PART of the whole week (erm, aside from, you know, uh, hanging out with my amazing colleagues) was Tuesday night.

Dinner at Harry Potter World!

Ack!

After hours – so we had that section of Universal to ourselves! It was seriously magical. Of course, I had special outfits for the entire day. My day outfit was my Harry Potter t-shirt with a pinafore, and my evening outfit for HP World was a Harry Potter skirt. We got to ride the rides and there was food and drinks and we could get free ice cream and wander around Diagon Alley and eeeek, it was so awesome. Words can’t really describe. Fortunately, I took pics. Natch.

Day Harry Potter
Cashmerette Upton Skirt

One of the best parts about the GM for me (and the most nerve-wracking) is meeting all of the people I’d interviewed and/or hired over the past year. One of the days we had a Happiness Hour, where all of the Happiness team got together and did some activities (like writing cards that were delivered throughout the GM) and got t-shirts and hung out. The crazy thing is that Happiness is now the size (or maybe bigger) than the whole company was when I joined. Insane!

Sadly, I had to leave a day early because of the boys’ soccer tournament in Pensacola (yes, also Florida) but that’s a post for another day….