Mortgage Monday: Yard Work

As the rain continued to fall off and on and the grass kept growing longer and longer, I finally found the time on Saturday to head over to the local Tractor Supply and pick out a tractor. There are a couple of other places closer to the house where I could have bought something but I decided to give a different retailer a try based on the recommendations of family members. Being that this was my first time at the store, it was an interesting experience seeing all that they have available on the shelves… the retailer is much more like a traditional hardware store than the giants that you commonly see from the highway like Lowe's or Home Depot. I prefer going here from now on. While I was there for a tractor this time around, it is nice to know that I can stop by the store (about 15 minutes away from the house) if I were to need other items.

It didn’t take long before I found the Cub Cadet that was recommended to me via text message last week and within a few minutes I was working with someone to figure out warranties and a means to have it delivered to the house…. I can fit a lot of stuff in the Jeep but a tractor is not one of them. It was during this conversation when I asked if they knew of any local landscapers who would be able to give me a head start. Thankfully, the woman with whom I was speaking had a name on hand, her landscaper, and, better yet, he would be able to pick up and deliver the tractor for me too (for free!).

On my way home, I left a message with the landscaper and by the end of the afternoon we had coordinated a time for the following afternoon to evaluate what needed to be done. And, yes, I checked with my wife to make sure it was okay for him to stop by on Mother’s Day. After walking around the property, we both agreed to a very reasonable price with work to start the following day. While the rain today has prevented us from making any progress, the work will be done this week.

While it is going to cost us a bit more, having a four man crew come in for two days and take care of everything is well worth the investment. I have no problem maintaining but I simply don’t have the time to catch up on the yard work. And, hopefully, we will have someone we can call moving forward should we need any additional landscaping or handyman work done in the future. For now, we are really looking forward to seeing the property cleaned up and seeing our son enjoying some more time outside.  

Firearms Friday: Turning Down Range Time

Having been so busy lately with work and a few unavoidable occurrences, I have spent some time over the last week trying to reconnect with a few people and return some calls that simply came in at the wrong time. A few of these correspondences that ended with the desire to get together in the near future to catch up with a couple people having a specific idea as to where we should meet… at the range. Each time I reflected on my lack of practice and tried to recall the last time that I was able to relax on the line. Safe to say that it has been far too long.

While I cannot recall a specific date when I last grabbed my range bag and headed out the door, I still recall both the frustration with myself and the relaxation afterward. It is one of those interesting dichotomies that comes with the passion for a particular sport or hobby. It really makes me curious as to what state I will find my skills in when I am finally able to return to my happy place… not sure if I want others to see the results of my overly busy schedule.

I would like to get out but there are just too many things that need to get done and any time that I have to dedicate to this hobby that might come up in the near future has to be dedicated to building and maintenance as that too has been lacking. At least this will give me a few more items to test when I can commit the time and everything else will have been looked over and cleaned recently. It will also give me a few more things to talk about when I can join them on the lane.

Unfortunately, things don’t seem like they will be changing any time soon. My schedule is still full and I am actually still trying to make up for lost time from the past month of chaos. I had no other choice than to turn down the offer of this particular meeting place with the hope to meet this time around somewhere that is more agreeable to the confines of my calendar. Maybe we can follow up this next meeting with some range time.

I know that I have to find the time to practice… this is a perishable skill after all. And I know that it will be good for me to shut out the rest of the world for just a few minutes but the reality of life won’t allow me to do that at the moment. But the hope it still there that we can make this happen soon… maybe sooner than I think. However, for now I am just going to try and catch up on my work.

Business Trip Recovery

One of the most difficult aspects of a business trip is the recovery afterward. Not only is it the work projects that, for the most part, were put on hold during my time out of the office but, more importantly, it is about making up the time with family and returning to our usual routine. No matter what I have tried it has yet to be made any easier.

What didn’t help this time around was the fact that I few down to Atlanta over the weekend not feeling well and after a few days of early mornings and late nights, I was really feeling like ‘crap on toast’ upon my return. Further complicating the matter was the fact that I had a lodge meeting on the schedule for the evening following my return and there was no possibility of staying home from work that day either. And because that wasn’t enough, both my wife and son were fighting off something.

Just one of these things would have kinked the works enough to make the simple task of getting work done even more difficult but having everything descend upon me all at one time has made the day less than fun. Makes me wish that I had caught up on everything else, the multitude of open projects, prior to my departure. I guess this is just one of those instances when you just put your head down and work until you can’t work anymore.

It really is astounding how much things have changed over the last few years. Walking out the door has become harder and harder with every tear and disappointed look on my son’s face and knowing that there is the possibility that I might miss something while I am gone is nearly an unbearable feeling to hold in throughout the day. And while I know that I am forgiven soon after returning home, the sadness that I have caused during the week is something that I wish I could take back.

Thankfully, this last trip concludes the bulk of my business travel for the year with only a few quick day trips that could pop up during the remainder of the year. I am hoping that my son will better understand the situation next year and that I might be able to have my family join me in the future. It would further complicate the travel but a complication that I welcome.

It All Begins With A Discussion

Since I had to leave the lodge earlier than expected last Thursday I was unable to sit down and get to know a petitioner that I had arranged to meet with during dinner. Thankfully things have since calmed down and the evening worked in everyone’s schedule so I was able to set aside the time last night and finally have a great conversation with our new petitioner. This is the first step, the most important step in my opinion, which is too often overlooked which is a shame because for me it is the most enjoyable part of the process. There is nothing like seeing that fascination and anticipation in the eyes of a candidate.

That was only the first of many productive conversation that I was able to have last night with various brothers as attendance at this particular fellowship was the highest that it has been in some time and a welcome sight for sure. Once the candidate was on his way, I soon transitioned to coordinating a few items with the Worshipful Master. There are a number of additional items that need to be included in the notice and some paperwork that needs to be prepared for the next meeting that I really don’t want to fall behind on. Ten minutes of productive dialogue is sometimes all it take to ensure that projects will be done on time.

And while it was great to meet with a candidate and have a petition in hand to read at the next stated meeting, I was greeted with an additional surprise when a seconded completed petition was discovered in my folder. However, this one came with a few questions and so my next conversation was with the first line signer of the petition. There are a few questions that still remain but there is a plan in place to address any and all concerns that I have moving forward so while there may be an additional step in the process it is a rather simple solution.

My final interjections for the evening was with a few of the other brothers who had convened to discuss the upcoming building committee meeting. There are a lot of projects that need to be undertaken both immediately as well as a few years from now and the list that was reviewed reflected exactly that dilemma. It will actually be interesting to see how this upcoming meeting is run as the roles overlap significantly with some of the other responsibilities of other brothers in the lodge namely the Trustees. I am hoping that this can be resolved quickly so that each can move in the right direction… the same positive direction that the membership is moving in.

So, while I may have missed the stated meeting last week and there are undoubtedly a number of things that I am still missing, I managed to get up to speed on just about everything that needed to be taken care of this week. It won’t be long now before the next meeting is upon us and then it will be back to the monthly routine. In the meantime, I am sure that there will be plenty of discussions, debates, and projects started. It is going to be a busy year but the good kind of bust this time around.

Still Behind But Catching Up

As you have most certainly noticed at this point, I am a little behind in writing blog posts (again). There was little time while we were away to write anything and when I did have a free moment or two there were a slew of emails that need to be sent. When those were done I decided to upload the pictures from the camera and sort through them rather than writing the posts to accompany them. I am actually glad that I did it this way as I was able to organize the hundreds of images making the subsequent writing much easier.

I am slowly catching up but still have a lot of work ahead of me all the while the amount of free time seems to be evaporating with every project that we have been putting off can’t be delayed any longer. There is some overdue cleaning that insidiously welcomed us back after our time away and there is a lot of organization that has been a nonstarter up to this point as well (mostly in our offices). And, of course, there is the readjustment back to our daily routines and the various tasks at work that seem to be convening this month just as I am just starting to get back ahead of things at the office.  

With that said, I am slowly getting the backlog of posts written and actually beginning to plan a fair amount of future posts as there are a lot of topic that I hope to cover in future days, weeks, and months as well as a number of places, events, and news items that I am planning on revisiting. There are also a few things marked on my calendar that should provide a bit of fodder for the blog. While I like to be a bit more ‘in the moment’ with these posts, having a good list of topics and ideas is a great way to prevent the long periods of inactivity due to a lack of material (the worst kind of gap).

However, while I have a long list of topics, subjects, and events that I will be writing about, I welcome any suggestions that you might have. After all, you are the ones that are reading these posts every day (even when they aren’t quite fresh given the number of views I received absent of new content). Additionally, I welcome guest posts, especially those from family members about our genealogy as well as submissions from other families about some of the interesting stories and discoveries that they have found. Hopefully, there will be a few such post in the future but, in the meantime, if you don’t have the time to write feel free to share your idea in the comments below. Maybe it will be the subject of a future post.

That Was Too Fast

With all the changes going on at the moment and the schedules that my wife and I have had over the past few weeks the long weekend was a welcomed occurrence. It is for this reason that we did not plan a single thing during the three days away from work. We know months ago that by this time we were going to need as much time as possible to do nothing.

While we did head out and do a little bit of exploring, we generally stuck to our plan, relaxed, and just took each day as it came. Friday night was a nice calm night at home. Saturday we did a little bit of local driving and exploring. Sunday we spent a few hours apart with me going to the range and my wife getting some homework done for her summer grad class. Today was more of the same as our sole venture beyond the confines of the apartment was for a buy one get one burger at Fox & Hound. What can I say… my wife is a cheap date.

Not surprisingly, there was plenty of work that I got done during the weekend as well including the posts that wrote for this blog. There has been a lot of things popping up lately at the office and it is that time of month for the lodge so there were a number of projects that had to be tackled during the last few days. I guess you could say that is was a long weekend for all the wrong reasons.

And now we are in the midst of the difficult time when Tuesday feels like Monday and we have to cram in five days of work into a four day span. I hate when Tuesday Jan pretends to be Monday Marsha… it’s just a high maintenance situation that I would rather not be a part of. And really with all the loose ends from the previous week, it was already going to be a long week even if it wasn’t cut short. Almost makes me wish that I had taken a few days off to extend the time away from the office but, then again, it would just be that much bigger of a headache upon my return so really I don’t know what would have been the best option.

So… now is the time to put my head down and work. When you see the words posted on this blog those will be the moments when I come up for air. And while I hope to continue providing you some daily entertainment and insight, I am not counting on anything of particularly fine quality. They may be short, they may be long. It really depends on how long I need to surface in order to fill my lungs. For now, it’s time to rest. I guess I will talk to you tomorrow!

It Was A Good Friday

My wife was not happy with me this morning as my alarm abruptly interrupted her in the early hours of the morning as she attempted to sleep in during her day off. Oh well, it was time for me to get up and go to work. I already used my floating holidays earlier in the week so today it was time for me to again try to make up for those days off. And there was a possibility to making up that work as most of my colleagues took the day off and a lot of people were off as well being that it was a bank holiday. That fact was noticed immediately upon turning onto the Schuylkill Expressway and not having to slam on the breaks attempting to merge. It was the easiest commute that I have had so far since I started this job.

The office parking lot was about half full when I arrived and the building was quiet when I walked through the doors. The office was silent when I entered as only one other person was working with me today. With the exception of a persistent cough that he has been dealing with all week and a few quick conversations, we both put our heads down and attempted to get as much done as we could.

In a complete change from my usual workday routine, I texted my wife what I wanted from Wawa for lunch and waited for her arrival. About an hour later, my wife walked through the front door and we sat in the family/conference room and enjoyed a nice lunch together. Granted, I am not used to this. In fact, I believe that this is the first time that my wife has come to my work for lunch. And when I say that I don’t just mean this office, I mean any office. So, it was quite the change but something that was a fun twist on the daily routine.

Just as we were finishing up our hoagies (please note that they are not subs, grinders, or anything else you refer to them as) my boss walked in the door and greeted us in her usual friendly manner. It really is more of a family atmosphere of mutual respect rather than a rigid hierarchy. This was also a first as my wife had not met my boss since I started this job. About ten minute later I walk my wife back out to her car with her newfound knowledge of why I really enjoy going to work every day. After all, it is not just about the work/job, it really has a lot to do with the people I work with.

With my wife on her way back home it was time to continue working on various projects in an attempt to get things done. By the late afternoon I had made a lot of progress on multiple items but I couldn’t really call anything completed. When five o’clock rolled around, we were told to leave and enjoy the weekend a little early. Oh well, I guess I have a few things to work on this weekend. So, it was a productive day with an interesting twist right in the middle. I am already looking forward to the next time that I experience a day like today. However, I hope a get a little more work done the next time.

Back To Work

When hump day feels like Monday you know it is going to be a long week. After taking two days off to bask in the Passover holiday, it was time to go back to work and attempt to catch up on all the things that I missed in the beginning of the week. So, I rolled out of bed in the morning with eyes that refused to believe that I had not been up this early in the past four days and legs that, if they had any energy, would swing up and kick my own butt. It just goes to show that no matter how much you love your job, the people you work with, and getting back to productivity you still really don’t want to go back to the office when you know that there is days of work to get caught up on.

The morning commute seemed a little longer than usual but also not long enough as my sluggishness was not relieved by my usual cup of coffee. The really odd thing about the drive was that I didn’t dwell on what was awaiting me on my desk. What did keep interrupting my auditory perceptions was what I didn’t accomplish during the past four days. While there were plenty of things that I did, there wasn’t enough to show for it. This of course made me think about what I could have gotten done and what I plan to do in the future when the occasional day off occurs.

So, I walk into the office and the first thing I see are the papers and the notes left on my desk. While I took a quick glance at them, I pretty much knew what they said already so I pushed them aside, turned on my computer, and began the slow dig out from under the avalanche. It wasn’t that the notes didn’t contain anything important but I knew that I had to get to work as quickly as possible before the day began getting away from me. And it didn’t take long before my schedule slipped from my grasp.

By the end of the day I had barely made a dent in what needed to be done as other things came up throughout the day and I was called into several meetings which accounted for nearly four hours. In some respects I wish I had not taken so much time off but, at the same time, I am glad that I was nowhere near the office for a few days. I am sure that it will be days before I get caught up and, by then, I am going to be looking forward to the next break in the calendar. Sometimes that is just how things go and all we can do is hold on, try not to throw up, and enjoy the ride (so I used a cliché, bite me).