The Conversion is OVER

I've been pretty slack on blog posts lately. Mostly, I've just been too worn out to put any interesting thoughts together. But I'm back so here goes!

Conversion/upgrade weekend went really well! It was a long, hard weekend, but the problems we encountered were pretty minor and fixed in a day or two. One of the hardest parts of the conversion week was waiting to see what was going to happen. Ideally, everything goes really smoothly... but there is always the "what if."

I also dealt with a pretty unsupportive team. My core project team of about 4 people were tremendous! But this project touched about 700 people, so it was frustrating to see how uninvolved many of the "key" players were. I guess they figured I'd handle everything, and that put an incredible amount of pressure on me. I think that's an inherent flaw in project managers that they get assigned "everything." But it's not really supposed to be that way. One of my project members said, "Wow. Everyone seems pretty calm. I expected people to be more anxious..." It's because people would just turn and point the finger at me if anything came up. YUCK.

I truly do need to look at other job options. But for now, this is what I have and I'll do my best. I am also going to work harder in 2010 to set better boundaries with my job. We'll see how that goes!

I'll post a more fun post about Christmas trees, advent wreaths, and parties later this week. Come back and see me!

So glad to be home!

So I made it home on Friday after almost a week away! I am so glad to be back home. And I think Isaac is too. It was a rainy, icky week. And I got to drive in a lot of rainy, icky wind. But I managed to come home in all one piece. I am grateful for that too. Little Vibe gets blown around in the wind.

Monday and Tuesday of last week were not very good. My test environment for my software program was down, and it took 2 days to get it back up. The bad thing was I needed the environment to do my training, and since I didn't have it, training didn't get done in Greenville. Oh well, I'll make it up this week... hopefully from Raleigh (doing it via web and conference call).

I got to see my dad on Veteran's Day and spend some good time with him and my step mom Carol. And I got to see my BFF Julie in Winston. It was so good to catch up with her. I don't get to see her nearly enough.

Isaac was one busy bee while I was gone. He is in the midst of changing all our electrical outlets from cream to white. The previous owners painted over the outlets, and they didn't look good at all. Plus he switched out the ceiling fan in our bedroom, and replaced the light fixture in the sunroom (including painting a portion of the ceiling). I'm tired just writing about all he's accomplished. As I blog, he's doing finishing touches on the step down from our dining room to living area. He commented that he might as well put his PhD in painting to good use. He is so funny!

We head into another really busy week. I'm training most of the week, and that usually leaves me pretty worn out. So I'm thinking about taking Friday off. Need to save up some energy for my big project conversion in about 3 weeks.

Have a great week everyone!

On the Road Again

I hit the road this week to start the "fabulous" training tour of November 2009! Maybe not so fabulous, but definitely a tour. : ) I was in Wilson Tues and Wed, and I head for Greenville, SC on Sunday. Then next Wed, I head from Greenville to Greensboro. I will be SO HAPPY to have this done. I think I'll through myself a little party for getting through it.

Those of you on facebook know I absentmindedly turned on to the wrong highway on Tuesday... and drove over 30 minutes before I realized I was going the wrong way. UGH! I was so frustrated I seriously wanted to cry. My 1 hour commute turned into 2 hours. Yuck. But I made it home safely. I was on a conference call for work, and apparently completely zoned out. I don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon.

I'm in the last 5 weeks of this GIGANTIC project at work. I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm looking forward to things settling down for a little while. I am definitely throwing a party when this project is done.

Isaac's new job started Monday. He is traveling to Fayetteville today to visit a client. And I think he'll be traveling more next week (but closer to Raleigh). We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, back to work. Have a good day!

Little Red Riding Hood and Wicked 10k

We had a great weekend in Va Beach this past weekend. We started the weekend by running the Wicked 10k down at the beach. Isaac and Haley cheered us on while Kathleen and I ran the race, me as a bandit. (I still feel a little guilty about that... a bandit is someone who runs a race without a number. I didn't have a # b/c the race sold out!) Our plan was to run nice and easy since it was a pretty warm and humid day. I would say the vast majority of runners wore costumes. Everything from a gigantic fish attached to the runner with a backpacking skeleton (and he ran 6 miles with that on!), to the H1N1 virus, to Zoro, Gene Simmons, and a woman running in a strapless dress (well, she mostly walked).

We did great and finished in 1 hour 40 seconds. We wanted to beat 60 minutes, but didn't quite make it. I wasn't sure how much was left in the race, so we didn't speed up till the last 4 minutes. One guy said, "4 blocks to go!" Another said, "8 blocks to go!" So a runner running near us said, "Let's take the average and think 6 blocks." (4 blocks was actually right.) We finished the race on the boardwalk, just as we did in the Rock 'N Roll 1/2 marathon Labor Day weekend. It took us 15 minutes to find Isaac and Haley b/c they made us exit onto the beach, and it took me a few minutes to figure out how to get back to them. But, it was a great race. Kathleen and Isaac really enjoyed the BBQ and slaw provided by Smithfield at the end. I wasn't ready to eat BBQ at 9:00 in the morning after running 6.4 miles. : )

We hung out together and watched Iowa beat Indiana to extend their season to 9-0! They essentially won the game in the 4th quarter scoring 28 points, so it was another nail biting game. We also played Parcheese (I had to relearn that...) and then prepared for TRICK OR TREATING! Haley was the best Little Red Ridinghood ever! We went around a neat neighborhood a block from Kathleen's apartment and really enjoyed ourselves. Many of the neighbors were sitting out on their front porches and driveways and giving out candy. Some of them even dressed up and played spooky music and occasionally jumped out from the shadows to scare us. I'd love to live in such a fun neighborhood one of these days!

Some of the carved pumpkins we saw were amazing. Check a couple out:

Pirate ship pumpkin:

Wicked Witch pumpkin (made by a couple that went to NC State but now lives in Va. Beach--what a small world):


Thanks Kathleen and Haley for such a nice weekend! We'll be back next year to run in the Wicked 10k (with costumes on next time!). And to trick or treat! Have a good week all!

Weekend

We're off to visit Kathleen and Haley in Va. Beach this weekend. I am SO EXCITED. Kathleen is running in the Wicked 10k, and we're going to take Haley trick or treating. She is going to be Little Red Ridinghood, so I'll be sure to post pics later. AND we get to meet Kathleen's new beau, Scott. I am more than a little excited about that... and even more so since my Tar Heels beat his Va. Tech Hokies last night! Scott is currently a commanding officer of a helicopter unit in the Navy stationed at Norfolk, Va. Unfortunately, he'll be moving to DC to work at the Pentagon in March, but we'll see how that goes. He out ranks my brother in Army/Navy terms... and for whatever reason, I find that hilarious! (Although I think Scott is about 5 years older too.)

Isaac sent out Halloween cards to all our nieces and nephews this week. Every sibling set got their own card--we don't want to cause any hard feelings! : ) He drew a special Halloween drawing in each one, and enclosed Halloween stickers. I think he may be the best Uncle EVER! The only thing I did was sign my name and stamp and mail the cards! I hope they enjoy them.

Isaac's last day at the Youngsville manufacturing facility is today! They are taking him out for a celebratory lunch. He starts his new job on Monday, although I think he wishes he took a couple days off in between jobs. But, he has a week of unpaid leave in the next month or so, so that will help a lot.

Hope you all have a great fall weekend (even though it's forecasted to be 80 around here). Happy Birthday to my Mom who turns 64 on Sunday. Love you Mom!

Iowa Football

Isaac and I have had a great time watching his alma mater play football this year. They are undefeated this season, and are ranked #6. It's so exciting to see how well they are doing.

Last night's game was on the Big 10 Network--which we don't get. So we headed to the Raleigh Iowa Alumni club gathering to watch it. It was a great game, with amazing defense on both sides. But we almost had a heart attack at the end. IOWA WON WITH 2 SECONDS LEFT ON THE CLOCK! 2 SECONDS! Whew. We all jumped up and were cheering and high fiving... It was amazing. So, Iowa remains undefeated and will probably get to go to a good bowl game around the holidays. (And of course, we're going to try to go... we have some free plane tickets we need to use.)

Anyway... sorry for the lack of posts. Work has been crazy, and I've been dealing with a little bit of depression. I'm feeling better this weekend, so I hope it continues. Will post more updates later.

On Iowa! Go Hawks! (As Iowans say...)

Weekend--YAY

Hi all. We were supposed to go to TN this weekend to celebrate Nana's birthday (Isaac's grandmother). But it turned out that Isaac had to work today (Saturday) so we had to cancel our trip. Kind of a bummer. But I think we'll be there for Christmas. So we're looking forward to that.

I'm blessed to have a long weekend this weekend since Columbus day is a bank holiday. I am really looking forward to that. I need to chill out this weekend and focus on stress relief. I'm waiting for Isaac to get home from work so we can run together. And I've mostly spent this morning jeans shopping online (I HATE jeans shopping) and watching junk TV. Sometimes that's just what you need, you know?

So happy weekend everyone!