Aaahhh-ha-ha-ha-ha (insert maniacal laugh here)

That's me being blissful in my new office !!! Yes, it's official. I'm moved in to my new office, the former conference room. Amazing ... absolutely amazing. It's enabled me to like my job again. It's enabled me to tolerate my co-workers again. It's renewed my enthusiasm for actually caring about my job again. My productivity has doubled. My mood has skyrocketed. My stress level has plummeted. It's amazing.

Pictures. Caveat: the room isn't done. Since this all happened so fast, we didn't have time to do much other than use what was there (which is fine with me!). I'm using the former conference room table as a desk (this will eventually get replaced, and moved to the other empty office across the hall). I'm using a random table off to the side (also being replaced) and in these pictures my chair is one of the conference room chairs (since replaced with a 'real' desk chair, with wheels and all that). My boss has hired his cousin, a master carpenter, to custom build me a work station to my design and specifications in this space. How. Cool. Is that? It'll take some time, but in the next month or so this place is going to be so amazing, I might just like it better than home. (I know, check me for fever).

Okay - the promised pictures.

Reminder: old office

Back to new office.

What's not to love?? I'd say I've hit a good spot - finally. I work part time, and have my own office (the proverbial corner office, no less, with windows overlooking beautiful garden views).

Sigh.

And if all that wasn't good enough ... in less than 72 hours I will be on the beach in North Carolina. (that weird tropical disturbance thing will be gone by then ... trust me, my name isn't Rayne for nothing).

Life is good.

Screw the bad economy - we'll make our own coin.

Well. Sorta. Greg, in his never-ending ability to see something neat, say, "Hey, I wonder how that's done," then set about learning, is making coins. Pirate coins, just for fun of course. But pretty darned cool nonetheless.

I sat in on a session yesterday, and can now report to you the process.

First you need a source of meltable metal. In his case, he started with pewter because (a) it melts and molds easily, and (b) we happened to have some available to melt down.


This creepy menagerie was found while cleaning out the garage. I knew I had, buried in there somewhere, a box of old trophies. These are old trophies - back when they still made the 'trophy' part out of real metal - pewter, apparently. I didn't want the old trophies anymore, and was going to throw them away, when we came up with the idea of melting the metal bits down to make the pirate coins Greg had wanted to try.

The guy with the laurel wreath on the left is, I think, a spelling bee trophy from when I was in about 5th or 6th grade. The fireman trophy was from a 3rd grade "Fire Prevention" poster contest. The horse on the far right, and the thing between it and the fireman (I think another horse) weren't even my trophies (that's what the ex gets for leaving crap in my parents' attic), so ... melt away.

The procedure (as Greg aka Lord Captain Robin McCauley does it) goes like this. The metal is melted with a simple propane blow torch. He carved the larger piece in which he is melting the metal out of graphite. This would have been the crucible, except he was having trouble getting the large piece to heat up using just the blow torch. So he made a channel in it, then made the smaller crucible (sitting under the drippy metal) to catch it as it ran down the channel.





This way with the blow torch he can both melt the metal and keep the smaller crucible very hot, to keep the metal liquid until he pours it into the mold. Otherwise it hardens way too fast. Why not just use the small crucible? Because the chunks o' trophy were too big.

The mold was carved into another piece of graphite. Once the liquid metal is poured in ...


... it needs tamped or pressed in a bit, to get it to spread all the way to the sides of the mold. This bit took some work, as he couldn't initially find anything that fit just right in the mold. He tried a capped beer bottle ...

... a little too big. Then he tried a tipper (the 'beater' or stick used to play a bodhran - Irish drum) ...


... and this was working the best last time I checked.

And the finished product looks like this:


Pretty neat.

Tyler watched. I suspect he has ideas about making his own dog coins. Or else he just noticed activity around the brazier, and was just waiting for a taste.

Office Heaven

Okay, I admit I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop on this, but that's starting to wear off, and as the reality settles in, I can't contain my excitement, I had to post. There is a light at the end of the tunnel ... and it may very well not be the biohazard toxic waste transport train.

I'm getting my own office at work. This has been an ongoing dream of mine for quite a few years. For very good reason. My until-now current situation has been like this: there's me and another legal secretary in one room, in the back of the building. It's the smallest room in the building, added on to this 1890s century-home-converted-to-office-building. This room isn't much bigger than a smallish bedroom in an average house, yet in it is: 2 L-shaped desks for me and the other secretary; a huge machine that is our copier / printer / fax / scanner; a second smaller printer; a largish wooden shelving unit thing in the middle of the floor (on which sits my computer monitor and several large metal boxes of file cards); and three 4-drawer filing cabinets. Due to the fact that our file cabinets can no longer hold all our files, there's also usually files stacked all over the floor. Moving around in this room is an exercise in flexibility worthy of Cirque du Soleil.

In fact, here are some pictures I took awhile back. My (former) desk is the one on the left, with the blue coat on the chair.

From the doorway into the room:

Another view:

These pictures don't even really do it justice ... it doesn't give the 'feel' of what it's actually like to have to sit and work in this EMF-infested nightmare all day. If all that wasn't bad enough, we have a wonderful office assistant named Allen who never even got his own desk, and works in the far corner of this room, using the top of the filing cabinets, and sometimes the floor, as his desk (with a portable, cordless phone).

Because the main office equipment is in this room, the 4th person in the office, the front desk person, is back there 25% of the day using the copier / fax / scanner (and generally talking the whole time). And then the attorney (when he's in the office) is often in this room dictating to one of the secretaries, or giving general instructions on one thing or another.

Which means all day long I'm trying to work with at least two other people in the room, talking to each other or on their own phones, or all the phones ringing (which they do incessantly, and there are three of them in this one room), and other people coming into the room talking to those of us who work there. The noise level in this room is maddening. There have been many times when five people have been in this tiny-ass room, all talking at once ... and this is the room I'm supposed to do detailed, complex legal work in!

It's enough to drive anyone insane. No wonder I've been skirting that abyss for so long. The conditions in this room contribute in large part to the angst I routinely experience, like that mentioned in my last post. Large part.

Meanwhile, we have two other rooms in the front of the building that are largely empty and rarely used. I've told my boss on numerous occasions that it's ludicrous that he has 80% of the working guts of the office (the computers, equipment, and staff) crammed into the tiniest room in the building. I've been begging him to let me work in one of the unused rooms up front - to get out of that tiny claustrophobic madhouse would help enormously in mitigating the rest of the craziness I have to endure at that place. I mean, people can only take so much ... .

Believe me - this has nothing to do with 'prestige.' This has nothing to do with "oooh, I have my own office." I've really never cared about that kind of crap. I really just wanted a saner, more productive work environment. I actually just wanted to be able to do my job without the incessant, crazy constant interruptions and distractions, All. Day. Long.

So ... it's finally happening. Through a series of events I won't go into the details of, I am finally getting the front room as my own office! I won't officially move in till Monday morning, but my new computer's in there, and today I got to work in there for awhile while the boss and I were going over a backlog of work. And it was amazing!!!!

It's been hard for me to even say "my own office" ... I keep referring to it as 'my room' ... as if I'm presuming too much by calling it my 'office.' But it is, it is, and now that I'm finally wrapping my head around the fact, I can't contain my exuberance! After actually getting to work in there today, in the glorious, wondrous quiet ... the incredible, indescribeable silence ... no ringing phones all over the office (just mine, and it's ringer is turned down to an incredibly muted volume) ... no 4 or 5 people all talking at once, to each other or on their various phones ... just heavenly peace, where I can focus and concentrate and actually do my work without constant distractions ... all I can do is sigh.

And after the initial wonder settled in, I realized something important. This is MY OFFICE. I don't have to say "my room" as if I'm a teenager at home. It's my office, and I damned well deserve it!! I've been working at this place for 12 years. I've been a legal secretary for 17 years. I am incredibly good at my job, and I do a lot of very complex work on these cases. I'm far more than just a "typist." My work involves most of what a paralegal does - the only difference is that I learned it all on the job, and never bothered to go get the 'official certification.'

There's no reason for me to feel all 'unentitled' about this, as if I've somehow managed to trick them into something and they're going to catch on and boot me out of the place after a few days. I deserve this, and I'm going to freaking wallow in it!!! I have my own office.

Here are some pictures I actually took last February (when I was pushing for this one other time, but wasn't able to get it to work - then). The files all over the table were my boss's work files, as he used to use this room to 'store his work.' Those files are all moved to a permanent new location now - that's taken care of. For the time being I'm using that large glass-topped table as my desk, because I haven't yet picked out an actual desk. When I do, the glass-topped table will be moved to the room across the hall. But look at this place! Compared to that other room ... well, I'm sure you can understand my excitement. (picture that table as it looks now, empty of all but my new laptop computer - I chose laptop over desktop because I love laptops - and it was the right decision, it's a joy to work with, and is much more flexible).



And if the wonderful, quiet, room all to myself wasn't good enough ... those two large windows on the left look out onto a huge front porch which is about the size of half my house, and across the street from that is the Women's Garden on the grounds of City Hall. That's going to be my new view out my office windows! (as opposed to my former view, which was the parking lot; granted, I was happy to have a window - A window - so this is just pure heaven).

I am very confident that this move alone is going to wipe out half (if not more) of the angst I was experiencing here which was causing me to detest this place as badly as I did. I may actually like my work again - it was never the 'legal work' I didn't like, I did after all choose this job direction voluntarily (the only vocation I ever did choose voluntarily and consciously) - it has just been the working conditions and certain people who were making it unbearable. Now I get (a) better working conditions, (b) huge distance and buffer from the problem person, and (c) the ability to do my job well again - with focus and lack of disruptions to get it done right. I'm actually psyched about how much more I will be able to do now in managing this caseload, the new responsibilities I can take on because I will have the time, space, and mental focus to actually handle it.

Just hadda share. This doesn't mean I'm going to completely give up looking for something that I may find more rewarding. It can't hurt to explore! But at least I won't be in a panic about finding it anymore.

Poipalooza; Job Blues; Knitting Resumes!

It's back!! I got the 3-beat weave back. No one probably remembers this ripple in my life, but awhile back I had to take a poi break because I was having a lot of pain in my left shoulder. This was only about a day after I finally figured out the 3-beat weave (a cool looking but allegedly beginner move that had eluded me for some time). A few days later, I tried it again and had totally lost it. But my shoulder was still hurting, so I extended my break.

I just recently began working with poi again, and my shoulder has totally recovered. (or had ... who knows if I'm going to do it again) And, I finally got the 3-beat weave back. I also got all the "simple turns" back (I had lost those too, for awhile). I lost a couple of other moves I have to re-work, but figured out at least one new one ... so it's a kind of one step forward, one step back kinda thing.

But I'm definitely re-obsessed, which is a good sign. I often become temporarily obsessed with something, only to lose interest in a short time. The fact that I have returned to poi after letting my shoulder get better, and still feel the same obsession with it, leads me to believe this is really something I'll stick with. And that's cool, because it's so much fun !!!!

But the job blues continue. But I don't really want to get into that tonight, so I'll save it for another time.

In more better news, however, I went back to work on the sweater tonight! I didn't get a lot done, but I did do a row or two (I'm on the back now, where the rows are twice as long, so it doesn't go as quickly). But it's nice to be back to work on the sweater.

And the best news of all ... my annual trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina is in only 10 DAYS!!! I. So. Cannot. Wait. (and I'm seriously hoping for no hurricanes!!)

Is that an iceberg I see up ahead?

It's been so long since I posted, I almost forgot how to find the blog. I guess a lot has been going on.

I've said similar things before, but (unfortunately) the more time goes by, the more true this is becoming. My job is the Titanic. Everytime I think it can't really get any worse, it does. I work for a small law office - one attorney and three full time staff members, that's it. My boss has almost stopped working entirely, and one of my co-workers has dubbed herself the "Office Manager" in his absence, and is trying to micromanage the place to pieces, despite the fact that she doesn't even know how to do the jobs she's trying to force people to do her way (which is usually wrong and ineffective at best, and sometimes downright illegal at worst). It's an ultimate recipe for disaster.

It's kept me pretty distracted. I am feeling backed into a corner with no way out, with this place. I know that's not really true - there are always options. But my problem to date has been two-fold: the only options I see are not ones I have been very successful at taking; and I just can't seem to see the better ones yet. I suppose I have blinders on and need to learn to think outside the box.

As for the first scenario - not liking the options I can see - all that's been suggested to me or I've figured out on my own so far has been to learn to stop letting it get to me. To do what I can, forget about the rest, and ignore the 'office manager' entirely. She has a loud bark, but can't really 'do anything' to me if I ignore her - her power doesn't extend that far, she can't take any real action, she can't take any "disciplinary action" against me - this office doesn't even have such policies in place. I can't get written up, and I know for a fact she can't fire me. The worst she can do is yell at me or chastise me (which she does several times a week) but again, I have the option to just ignore her, as that's about all she can do.

While that is probably the only real option I have in the short term, I find it very hard. I have a hard time ignoring stupid, ignorant people who are causing more problems then they are claiming to solve, and who are chastising me when they have absolutely no right or authority to do so. My ego has a hard time letting me ignore this kind of treatment. But ... I think I'm going to have to work at it. Not only to save my short-term sanity, but because it's probably a useful skill for all of life, anyway. The world's too full of power-crazed idiots for me to let every one of them get to me.

As for the better options I can't see yet, this would involve leaving the insane place. And that would probably be the best thing I could do - this place being such a mess isn't a new problem, but one that's been steadily growing for a long time, so it's obviously not going to get any better. Except - again - for one minor detail: I have no freaking idea where to go. Jobs around my area are scarce. Very scarce. This is a mostly dead rust belt town, and any random run through the local classifieds, Monster.com, or CareerBuilder.com turns up a bunch of crap jobs paying nothing. Trust me, I've tried these routes many times.

I've considered for years just picking a new career, getting whatever training I need for it, and moving on to something entirely new, but I run into a huge roadblock: I have never, ever been able to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I can't seem to choose a new career, nothing I think of sounds like anything I really want to do all day, every day. I've tried everything I can think of to sort this one out: I've read dozens of books, you know the ones: "Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow" and "It's Only To Late If You Don't Start Now" (Barbara Sher) and "Finding Your North Star" (Martha Beck) and the like. They've never helped me pin anything down. I don't fault the books (those last two are particularly good; the first one I never actually read, I am just familiar with the title and it fits in with the genre). It's not the authors' fault - it's me, some flaw or block I have that is stopping me from recognizing or accepting some new direction for my life. Probably fear - of choosing the wrong thing and having to start over again, of failing, of being broke and destitute and homeless - any number of things.

I've asked bunches of friends who know me well what kind of thing it seems to them I might be good at - not looking for someone else to tell me 'what to do,' but brainstorming ideas I might never have thought of on my own. Though I appreciated their help, inwardly I rejected all the ideas for the same reasons I reject every other idea - there's always some reason. I couldn't do that, I wouldn't be any good at that, I wouldn't make enough money to support myself doing that, it involves too much math / too much science / too much working with people.

I know I'm sabotaging myself by making too many excuses - I do recognize that, at least! - but as of yet I don't seem to know how to fix it. I don't do it 'on purpose' because I'm just lazy (no one who is 'lazy' would put up with the job I've got now, as it makes enormous demands on me). I think it truly is just a deep seated fear of jumping off of known ground into deep, murky water, and I just haven't managed to work through it yet.

Well. I've got to start working a little harder at it soon, because it's becoming increasing obvious that things just can't be left to go on as they are. Every time this office takes another nose dive I wig out for awhile, being upset and depressed, then things stabilize at their new low level, and I find myself thinking, "Okay, this isn't so bad, I can deal with this - if it doesn't get any worse." But it always does. It always gets worse eventually, and nothing ever takes an 'upswing' there. If I want to be smart, I'm going to have to finally 'get' that, and do what I need to do about it. Life's too short to keep being this miserable so many hours a week, and I wasn't kidding when I said getting out of there might save my life ... I'm stressing way too much about this place anymore, and stress will wreak various levels of havoc on anyone over time. I drink too much, I smoke too much, most nights I can't sleep without a sleeping pill anymore, and even then I often wake up at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, completely unable to go back to sleep till near dawn. I spend most of every day feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack (and with my health habits, at 42, I may well be). This is a textbook example of one author's perfect phrase: "This isn't making a living, this is making a dying."

So buck up, girl - it's time to crawl out of the cocoon and turn into something new! Before it's too late!!

Hey, I just gave myself a pretty good rah-rah speech. I'll keep you posted as to how it goes. Oh - and with the recent stress, I haven't been knitting at all - very disappointed in myself over that. I'm going to be needing that sweater any day, and it's no where near done. We'll see what I can do about that in the coming weeks, too.

Ahhh ... long weekend.

And I'm not doing anything today. I was extremely productive this weekend. Saturday I went to my brother's over in PA to help him clean the house. I'd asked him a couple weeks ago if there was anything I could do, and this was the one thing he came up with - they'd had a really hard time keeping up with the house since my sister-in-law passed away, and things were just getting a bit out of hand. I have news for him: his 'out of hand' is about 7 times cleaner than my house on a good day.

Regardless, I went down there and cleaned: swept and mopped the kitchen and dining room, dusted and vaccuumed the living room, vaccuumed the hallway and two bedrooms, and cleaned a bathroom. Not a bad afternoon's work, and the nice thing was, it was so productive - it was very much 'light cleaning,' where you could actually see the results of your effort (unlike this place, where even major effort yields little in tangible results). The place was looking much better, and my brother was feeling much better about it, when I left.

Then yesterday we poured some work into this place, finally cleaning up all the mess that had accumulated alongside the driveway. We took an entire pickup truck load of garbage to the dumpster where I work (which I'd previously gotten permission to do). We have another load of garbage ready to go to the dumpster, but couldn't take it yesterday - the dumpster was too full.

So now the garage is trashed, yes ... but at least the side of the driveway is finally cleaned out!! That's been bugging me for a year or more. Every time I'd pull in the driveway I'd just cringe. All I have to do now is try to get some grass to grow back into the bare areas where the stuff had been sitting ... or maybe just cover it with patio bricks or something to sit the garbage can on ... and that's one small area done! Small, but - completely done!

The garage will probably be a project for next weekend. I decided after working both Saturday and Sunday this weekend, I'm taking today off. Not doing nothin'. Relaxing and chilling, that's it. But the garage does need done, desperately (we've been using it for storage since spring, but I will get my truck back in there before bad weather).

After seeing into the nooks and crannies of someone else's house, and how clean and nice a place can be, with minmial effort to get it spruced back up like we did Saturday, I'm really ramped up to start putting this place back together after it's years of neglect. It will be a long, slow process, but that's no reason not to do it at all. I think what I need to do is focus on one area at a time, and while the weather holds it'll be the outside areas. But once the fall chill comes in for good, I'm going to start focusing on the kitchen. Again.

Hopefully I can maintain my motivation.