Not so bad

The little grey box where I spend nearly a third of my life got reconfigured. I have four corners now and a doorway (non-ADA compliant, as it's 24" wide). My desk wraps around half the space and as I sit facing the computer screen, there is a skylight and trees in the atrium. I got a climbing jasmine plant for my shelf today. Pictures of Big Boy, my soon to be daughter in law, little boy, GF, and Blue the flyball dog now surround me. Things are getting better, though the management issue is still a problem. It was hard to be so unhappy for so long. Huh. I guess I have come a fair ways since my 20s.

Techno-geek (plus rant)

Since the beginning of the year, not quite two weeks ago, I've read three books on my phone (free Android Kindle app). I tried reading Moby Dick on my phone last summer, but it just wasn't working. I got bored, my mind wandered, there were either too many or too few words on the page. After fiddling with the color, text size and brightness, I got the settings right. Either that, or I chose less dense and more mindless reading material. Grisham certainly qualifies, but I don't think The Handmaid's Tale does. Last night I finished The Magician King. Virtual page turner (for those of us who enjoy YA-ish science fiction/fantasy) nearly the entire way.

The coolest part of this is that I got the books from the library, all without ever having to leave my desk. Ramsey County library has a decent selection of Kindle books, which after a few clicks, get delivered to my amazon.com Kindle account and from there I can send them to my phone. I'm ridiculously delighted by how easy it is. Hennepin County library seems to favor the Adobe epub format, which doesn't work on my particular phone. They have some Kindle titles (I think I even have some on hold), though.

I've been hating my job lately. One too many things have changed and the balance has tipped. I can tolerate my skills being underused, and being bored, and being hated by the populace (government employee), and never getting to do novel research, and the occasional unfathomable management decision. But combine that with a new dysfunctional and impenetrable management structure (no supervisor, an overworked director, an unsupportive chief legal officer who is neither director nor assistant commissioner, but something new and different), the administration's focus on "supporting schools" (there won't be much support for schools without federal money and there won't be any federal money without compliance with federal laws - that's where I come in) while de-emphasizing monitoring & compliance (hi! that's me again), my division's move to the far reaches of the building, and my scoring an open administrative assistant's cube... Well, it's too much. My coworker told me today that I could choose to be happy about it and that it was really obvious that I was not pleased with the situation. Too bad. The situation isn't tolerable anymore. I'm reviewing my options.

[insert sentimental maternal rambling here]

 

 

Things to Accomplish in 2012

Maybe not "resolutions" per se, but things I'd like to get done and will put some effort into accomplishing in the upcoming year.

1. Running
Explore Minnesota Challenge
I haven't yet decided if I'm going to shoot for 8 races in the four designated regions of Minnesota (mostly because they haven't finalized the races and haven't told us the boundaries of the regions). I'm doing the Securian Frozen 5k on January 28th, which is the first race in the challenge. The upcoming races box on the right has a list of the races I'm doing next year. The ones with an asterisk are part of the Challenge series. Most of them are tentative.

Marathon?
I still haven't figured out whether I'm running another marathon next year. I've got a 5 or 6 week span where I could fit one in, but I can't decide where to go. Travel? Stay nearby? I think I've decided that I can't run another marathon in Wisconsin, though that would give me several possibilities and it's close to home. Maybe I need to rethink that. Even though it would be about 10 months away, I feel like I need to decide and nail down all the details, if only to finalize my running schedule.

UW Badger Cross Country
I'd like to watch little boy race some DI races next season (I will have to keep checking #2 and keep myself from buying any fangirl gear).

2. Saving & spending
One of my GF's observations this year was that it's impossible to get me gifts because if I want something I get it myself. 2012 will be the year of wish lists, fewer impulse purchases and more saving. I already have book lists online at the library and I started a wish list on amazon.com. The stock market this past year has made me very skittish about putting more money into my Roth IRA (which I haven't even looked at in months). I figure that any money I'm saving will be safer in a regular old savings account earning a tenth of a percent interest, rather than slowing dwindling away (or abruptly losing half its value in a week) in my IRA account. Knowing that I won't be able to retire also makes me less inclined to save for retirement. Why postpone vacations or home improvements or dinners out or movies or traveling to save for a future that isn't even possible for me? Given how much my IRA has lost, not to mention how much it has not grown, plus my age, it is not mathematically possible for me to save enough to stop working. I theoretically have a pension, but I don't trust the state legislature not to rip it out from under me. Same goes with the feds and social security.

3. Travel
GF and I are already slated to go to DC in April to celebrate both of her parents turning 70 in 2012. We could also plan a destination race for September or October somewhere in the US (or Canada!). I've also got my eye out for a good fare to fly to England or Spain. Big Boy is moving to Utah in April and will be working in St. George again. It's easier (and cheaper) to fly to Las Vegas than to St. Lake City, plus it's only a 2 hour drive from where he'll be living. I'm supposed to be accruing 5 hours of vacation time every two weeks now that I've been working for the state for 5 years and I have over 100 hours already sitting in my vacation bank. The longer I work at this job, the more I want to vacation. Hmm...

4. Wedding!
Big Boy & his fiancee are getting married on November 24, 2012! Ok, that's not a resolution or something for me to accomplish, but it's really exciting and it's on the calendar. The family is all heading to Minnesota for Thanksgiving and hopefully a snowy white wedding. With the lack of snow we've had this year, I wouldn't mind some snow next November to brighten up the place.