From the Depths of My Hard Drive

Frustrated woman
Photo by Simran Sood on Unsplash

While looking for a copy of last year’s taxes, I found a Word document I created in 2014. I vaguely recall writing this document as a part of a series of writing challenges created by NPR.

The intended reader is the professional writing society I belonged to at the time. I did quit my affiliation with the society about three months after I wrote the document. But I only sent the document to NPR, not to the people who I thought needed to read it.

Taking a look at their web site today, I can see that nothing has changed. It’s still Hot Mess Central. I have no regrets.

I present to you, “A Letter of Regret:  A Professional Breakup Notice”:

I have been mulling this over for the last six months.  It's just not working anymore.  The time and effort I put in are not longer returning a benefit to me.  While I take care of matters, when I need you, there's nothing for me.

You and I are not in the same place.  I don't search out the big places and names - plus they aren't here anyway and they can't be afforded.  But your focus seems to be on the next new bright shiny thing:  DITA, the cloud, branding, certification, consolidation.  All of it leaves me in the dust.

While I do appreciate the smaller organizations, I am held hostage to you in order to participate where the few of us like me can gather.

Change from within!  Change from within!  Oh, I see what has happened to those before me who dared to say something counter, to even speak the bold truth.  Doors shut, silence.  And ultimately, they walk away.  You can only have the door slammed in your face so many times before you realize your nose is flat and painful, and the only way to stop the pain is to exit.

Therefore I am exiting.  You probably won't even notice that I am gone.  You haven't really noticed or comprehended the numbers that have already left, other than to say we need more publicity, more standards, more money.  I say bullshit.  You need more like me, because there actually are more like me than like you.  We have given up trying to get you to notice because you keep chasing the shiny.  Well, have fun and good luck with that.  I'll be glad to rebuilt my professional soul without you.

I retired in December 2021. I could have sent this letter to my former employer now. I’d just need to remove the reference to DITA and change it to either “The Cloud” or “AWS”.

In the last year, I’ve read several books and articles about change management. In the world of work, nothing seems to change. You can only change yourself. I’m happy with the changes I made in 2014 and 2021. I stepped out of the endless loop built by work; it’s time to concentrate on me.

Wazzup Wednesday: 1-19-2022

Been a long while since I’ve made an update. Football season has come and gone, and we’re now into the heart of Winter in Minnesota. As I write this, the wind gusts from the latest cold front are rattling my windows. That’s a benefit of an old house — you always know when the wind speed is over 35 mph because the windows make noise.

You also know when it is close to -25F, because the house starts popping and snapping. Haven’t gotten to that yet this Winter. But it’s coming.

I use to participate in Workdesk Wednesday. But I rarely have any projects in process on my workdesk anymore. Now that I am retired, I keep a picked up office. No pictures to take of piles of stuff ready to be created with. Everything now has a tidy home.

But I can give you a run-down on what I’ve been working on.

  • Layouts from the Vikings home games I’ve attended. I’ve scrapped the first four games. Here’s my latest layout.
  • I’m also working on the Pep Talk Mini Book from Everyday Explorers Co. No pictures yet. It’s still in the creation phase.
  • The Refresh Retreat starts tomorrow at Simple Scrapper. I’m looking forward to a long weekend of crafty goodness with my friends.
  • I’m still doing Daily Pages with the Awesome Ladies Project. I’ve been using a composition notebook, which is MUCH larger than the typical Field Notes notebook. It’s been an interesting ride working with something that large. Part of me will be glad to be done with it, the other part will miss the extra space. Here’s one of my recent Daily Pages.

That’s the latest from me. What’s up with your life?

Favorite Three for June

Here it is, the last Wednesday of the month. Here are my favorites for June.

Favorite Photograph

A picture of all the kids, about a week before the first one left the nest.

(L to R) One, Four, Two, and Three in their very crowded nest

I miss these chicks. They were so much fun to watch growing up.

Favorite Layout

I only did one layout this month, and it was the May wrap-up.

I’ve been working on my Before Your Story class, so it will be a while before you’ll see a layout from that.

Favorite Daily Page

I was feeling reflective and wound up with this page about my bad habit of buying too much scrappy stuff.

That’s it for the June summary. I need to get back to making some pages this month and sharing them here. In the meantime, what are your June favorites? Post a link to your page in the comments.

DSLR Woes

I seem to have forgotten how to use my big camera, my Canon D30. I’ve been having a hard time taking a good clear picture of the robins with it. My best pictures are coming from my Samsung S8.

I’m disappointed at the poor quality, and I blame it completely on the camera’s operator. I took such great photos at the Vikings games in 2019, I thought I had my camera all figured out. Then trying to photograph birds in medium, shadow-less light results in blurred and dark pictures.

I’ve got to figure this out. I should be back taking pictures of games this fall, so I know what I’ll be working on this summer.

Crowded House

The chicks are growing quickly. Yesterday the chick I call One tried to make a break for it three times. In the morning, One crawled out of the nest and perched on the edge, only to have Mama Bird swoop in to tell One to get back into the nest. The second time One perched on the edge, One lost balance and stretched out a wing to push against the light and fall back into the nest. In the evening, One was back to perching on the edge and pushing Four around in the nest to make room. Mama showed up and One promptly got two or three beak pecks on the back.

Everytime I leave the house, I expect to see fewer than four in the nest. One is definitely as big as its Mama and ready to leave, and Two is close behind. Three just opened its eyes yesterday and is losing pinfeathers, and Four is still looking like the naked ugly cute thing it is.

It appears that the diet for the chicks has changed. Mama is bringing some kind of round berry to the nest. It almost looks like a buckthorn berry, but I don’t know if they are ripe yet. Or maybe they are leftovers from last year.

We spend a lot of time on the deck watching the nest. It’s the best reality show available! I’m enjoying taking photos and accidentally getting a video or two. I hope you’re enjoying the journey through these blog posts.

And Then There Were Four!

About an hour after I published the last robin post, John told me that he saw a third baby bird in the nest. Sure enough, the next day I was able to photograph three babies in the nest. Considering 40% of nests produce no viable chicks, we already felt like the robins won the lottery.

Dad keeping an eye on me from 6 ft away.

Friday afternoon, I noticed what I thought was another beak peaking out over the nest. Mama Bird also was carrying chunks of bird shell out of the nest during her clean-up time. Robins keep a very clean nest, BTW.

I told no one of my discovery. Saturday, John said he saw a fourth chick. On Sunday, we all saw the fourth chick, much smaller than the others. The eggs hatch at different times, but it was a surprise to see another chick almost a week after the first one hatched.

Speaking of the first chick, it is getting very large and having a hard time getting comfortable in the crowded nest. It was flapping its wings this morning. Wings with tiny very widely spaced feathers. It’s not flight time yet, buster. Just chill.

It’s been so much fun watching this evolution from a mess of long grass dumped on the deck to the bumps of four little heads just visible over the top of the nest. We have our own reality nature show on the deck. That’s hard to beat.

And now some very short chick video, so you can say “aw, aren’t they ugly-cute”

Rockin’ Robins

In mid-May, we were surprised to find a robin building a nest on top of our deck lights under the awning. John has named the robin Mrs. Robinson, but I call her Mama Bird.

Nest building got quite messy with grass strewn on the deck. During this phase, Mama Bird threw some decomposing leaf muck from the gutter at Adelaide when Macalester gets barky. Mama Bird is not fond of the dogs, but takes out all her aggression on poor Adelaide, who is minding her own business. After the latest bird dive-bombing, it’s a wonder Adelaide hasn’t developed a complex.

The male robin, Deadbeat Dad, didn’t show up, until shortly before the eggs started to hatch. He has now attacked me and Macalester. But in the last couple of days he’s been a fan of the water I’ve left out for them.

It’s been extremely hot here, in the mid to upper 90s (34 to 37 Celsius). We had worried that the eggs may have become hard boiled during the heat. We’re lucky not to have had any terrible storms, as usually we roll up the awning so it doesn’t get damaged. I think I have convinced John that if we do have bad weather, the awning stays up to protect the nest.

On Sunday, I thought I heard a small peep when a parent returned to the nest. Yesterday, I saw a tiny bill, again when a parent was at the nest. Today, I managed to capture picture of the babies being fed. I can see there are two, and I’m assuming that’s all. I never got a picture of inside of the nest because I couldn’t get my selfie stick to work. And I was getting the evil eye from a bird.

According to what I’ve read, I think we’ve just got a little more than a week before the babies leave the nest. I’ve been taking photos with my cell phone (Samsung S8). Tonight, I’m going to try to get some photos with my DSLR and my big lens. This is going to be almost as fun as shooting at football games.

Busy Sunday Morning

Adelaide and I were jolted out of bed just before 6 am by a flash and a boom. Not a storm, but I think a transformer blew up nearby due to the heat. Since we were wide awake, I tore my workstation down to find a notebook in a filing cabinet behind the workstation. I found the notebook, and other goodies I’m going to slip into my 2019 and 2020 albums to document “life before”.

Then I got the itch to clean out the bookshelves in the bedroom. John had crammed all kinds of old electronics and other non-book things onto the shelves. I cleaned that up, put some books into my donation bag, and put all the kid books and Amy Tan books together, along with several misplaced volumes of my Readers Digest Best Loved Books. The flying dust is thick, several trash bags are full. All shelves are tidied up and my office set back up by 7:45 am.

Have I ever mentioned I’m a morning person?

Now I’m ready to make a cup of coffee and relax after finishing this blog post. The rest of the day is for reading and other creative endeavors, with a few household chores. I’ll weed the front yard this evening when it gets cooler.

SKOL! Vikings

In honor of the Organized Team Activities (OTA) taking place at the TCO Performance Center, I thought I’d post my three favorite layouts from the ten Vikings games I attended in 2019. I had challenged myself to try to develop my own, personal Vikings digital backgrounds. Some were OK, but these three hit it out of the ballpark (football stadium) for me.

White background with purple and yellow stripes. Very simple, but I liked how it turned out.
This was a favorite because I made the background from a photograph I took of the field. 3M had given all the attendees a purple filter to put on their phone flashes. At the beginning of the game, the announcer had us turn on our phone flashlights as they dimmed the stadium lights. The result was this purple cast over everything. It was so much fun. It was a glorious evening for a game, and I loved taking some of the outdoor shots before the game.
Again, a white background, this time playing with various purple and yellow rectangles.

I really miss watching football in person. I have my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to attend a training camp event, and be able to attend a game in person this year.

Favorite Three for May

My friend Honore’ of Morning Glory Studio challenged me to post more of the layouts and creative items I make. So we decided to post our Favorite layout, Daily Page, and one other creative item once a month on the last Wednesday (or so) of the month.

Favorite Photograph

Saint Paul was bursting with flowers, new leaves, and color on the first Saturday morning in May. I left the house around 7am and took pictures in my ‘hood and around my house to capture the glory. This is my favorite picture of the bunch. As I drove around the back nine of the Highland Golf Course, I spotted a bench under a small grove of trees. The color and lighting was so delightful, that I drove backwards for a block to get back to the location of the grove. Now you know why I went out at 7am — NO TRAFFIC.

Favorite Layout

I finally scrapped the photos from Ali Edwards’s 2020 Pieces of Me challenge. I chose a digital template from the Simple Scrapper layout library (a benefit of membership!) and made it my own.

Favorite Daily Page

I participate in the Daily Pages challenge at The Awesome Ladies Project. Daily Pages are a chance to get creative, experiment, and use up your stash on a small format page. I use either Field Notes or Scout Notes notebooks. This page is an experiment in using washi tape to frame an element or two, without getting anal about exact placement of the washi. I used some leftover ephemera from a Jen Hadfield collection.

Honore’ already has her Favorites page posted here: check out her work. Then post some of your favorites. If you read this and do post your favorites, drop a link to your page in the Comments section so I can see your work.