Montreal, continued

Here's another old post I never completed back in Nov 2012!!  It goes to show how negligent I've been with writing!  Enjoy :)

"With day 1 complete, day 2 commenced with 30 degree weather and snow sprinkles!  It was beautiful outside, albeit very windy and toe-freezing cold, but we got out there and explored.  Started the day at Bagels etc. on Saint Laurent with the Byzantine & Pompadour eggs Benedict dishes.  The Byzantine had 2 poached eggs, goat cheese (sliced from a log with a slightly, delightfully chewy rind on the edge), tomato & spinach over a lightly toasted sesame bagel.  The Pompadour had 2 poached eggs, melted cheddar, mushies, red pepper & spinach over a lightly toasted sesame bagel.  Both came with wonderfully made home fries.  Mmm, we couldn't even finish our meals and quickly entered a food coma :)

Showered, dressed for the cold, and bellies full, we wandered to the Boulangerie on St. Denis for...um...more food!  We bought un croissant, un petit cheddar et un canelle, mmm!  The canelle is like a pudding-flan-mini cake of which the inside richly melts in your mouth while the outer carmelized skin sticks to your teeth so you can savor it long after the canelle has been consumed."

Montreal, at first

We arrived yesterday afternoon around 1:00 pm after a 6.5 hour drive and I was instantly in love!  We settled into the apartment and changed our clothes to scope out the neighborhood.

It's absolutely lovely here and we're having a great time.  The weather has been perfect with clear skies and sunshine, abnormal for late November as we were told.  Tonight it's raining, but the temperature is lovely.
We've eaten great food (so much good bread here!!!), medium food, struggled with parking, ridden the Metro, met locals, met a lady called Binky from Delaware who owns an herbal/floral natural bakery/cafe/store on the corner of our street, spoke with a sweet old Sicilian guy in the market who scoffed at our vegetarianism ("Que pecado!") while trying to sell us olive oil in French and Italian and proceeded to tell us about his amazing grandkids, met a family from Monterrey Mexico who helped us locate the nearest Metro station, bought local chevre & porcini/olive oil mustard, window shopped (and drooled!), admired a LOT of artistic graffiti, learned local traffic & pedestrian rules...all the things that you experience in a foreign city.  Oh, and I'm learning some French too!!  It's wonderful.  I could live here :)

More to be explored...and off we go!

A new lunch

Today I had lunch with D & 3 new co-workers who work for a company that my company acquired.  They are complete sweethearts and one has a food blog!  Nom, nom, how I love food :)  I finished eating about 2 hours ago, but reading through her blog initiated the hungers all over again, ha!

My afternoon tasks include:
- finish client work before Thanksgiving
- put away clean laundry before Thanksgiving
- pack for Thanksgiving weekend
- clean up any crap laying around...before Thanksgiving ;)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Though I'm not 100% sold on the real reason we celebrate this holiday, I love giving thanks to the world around me for the love and support that my family and friends provide as I make my way through life.  They are ever-present in my daily thoughts and I love them deeply, appreciate them wholly, and smile when I imagine their faces next to mine :)

New blogs I learned about today:
Urban Foodie Finds & A Sunshiny Day

Good eats, bear hugs, and warm hearts to you on this holiday week!

It's how you get there from here

In the last year and eight months I've been feeling my way through a PA position; managing daily tasks, leading training calls and on-site trainings, providing go-live support, and wondering where I would end up next.  In the beginning I was short on work, since we didn't have as many sales in my region as the other regions had.  Therefore, I missed out on many learning opportunities that I watched my co-workers plunge through.  I've been sitting here, with new feelings of discontent, saddened at watching colleagues move up the ladder and successfully lead calls as they begin managing their own projects...while I sit and wait for a new assignment.  I had to ask my manager two times before he gave me my own client projects to manage.

D says to look inside myself and see if I am perhaps one of the reasons I wasn't assigned my own projects earlier on.  Do I appear not ready?  Do I exhibit characteristics of someone less motivated or less focused?  Am I too lackadaisical in my daily work?  I'm emotional; this I know.  Take the emotion out of your work, I've been told.  Fine, take it out of the "climbing the ladder" mindset, but take it out of my work?  No...I'm not down with that.  I'm passionate about helping my clients succeed, but definitely get stressed when things don't right, or go as planned.  How do I not take things personally when they go awry or when clients get upset?  It's the way I know best.

I know I'm being groomed for a PM position, as most of us are, but it's a tough road getting there.  Traveling across 1-3 hour time changes, 9-12 hours driving/flying/driving to and from client sites (trying to work while on the plane, internet or not), late nights working in the hotel room, early mornings skipping the gym in order to prep for the 10-hour work day; it's exhausting and I'm feeling a bit burnt out from the 60-hour work weeks.

Lucky for me, Montreal is in 1.5 days for the long Thanksgiving weekend!  We are two couples, good friends, driving up early Thursday morning and staying through Sunday afternoon.  So excited!  We're going to test out the bixi bikes, take in some art/theatre/opera/jazz, hopefully see some historical parts of the city, and eat some crazy yummy food (bagels and poutine!)...mmm, mmm, yes.  This weekend shall revive me!  (Or at least I'm hoping I can go more than one full day and NOT think about work...*fingers crossed*).

Buenas noches, mundo...hasta la proxima.

3 straight weeks

...that I was on the road!  This happened back in January and I'm finally posting it, haha.

WEEK 1 - Rome, GA - training for work, Thai food, cute downtown, nowhere town.

WKND 1 - Atlanta, GA - Joey & Mary, kitty love, Jami, Larry & Viv, puppet museum & puppet show(!), painting on canvas, Shabbat dinner, Natalka and her (new) family, love.

WEEK 2 - Boulder, CO - training, Ortho, noodles (good & bad), Allie reunion, Southern Sun, "I love Stout Month" t-shirt :)

If it hurts.... If you're stressed....

If you just need to get away from life for a little while.


Get your red wine, get cozy, and open two tabs, one for each link:
www.rainymood.com
and
The Fireplace Video (10 min)

Thanks to my incredible baby love for sharing these with me when I needed them the most!

bwebifice is the edifice where the bwebiface lives

Bwerbs. Gwerbs. Babyflakes. Babycukes. This is just a sampling of what I hear every day :)

I'm currently sitting at 41,825 feet and flying 487 mph from Miami to Dallas.  I'm leading a client training with SA tomorrow for the first time and I'm excited-nervous.  SA is a great project lead and very efficient, organized, straightforward...you name it and she's the student in class who finished her term paper two weeks before it was due.  I, on the other hand, am the student who plays and thinks and thinks, and then finishes the paper at 3 am the day it's due.  I'm not exactly sure why, but procrastination has always been part of my character.  I'm really hoping that SA will rub off on me and teach me that a good night's sleep is way better than cramming :) Not to mention that she's my current, and third, mentor at work.  I'm looking forward to the challenges of working with her and pushing myself to more of a "do it now" attitude!

On that note, I'm off to configure some stuffy stuff for the training...ta-ta! :)

Moving forward and moving on...

Holidays at the beach...
Family dinners on the lanai...
Saving sea stars in Lover's Key...
Collecting shells on Sanibel Island...
Watching pelicans dive for a meal...
Waking up to heron and egrets delicately walking in the backyard.

This is what Ft. Myers holds for the family.  Countdown to 07/28 whence the move begins as the healing of childhood goodbyes continues its process.  I'm eager for M&D to make the move, yet sad to say goodbye to home life in the Berkshires.  I soon become a visitor, but never a tourist ;)

Having a flashback...

...to my breakup with Peter, to how much I learned about myself in those Providence years, to the strength I always had inside that I just needed a push to find, and reflecting on the person I've blossomed into since 2005. And also reflecting on how wonderful it is to have grown with my two best college friends over the years.

(I had a wonderful girls' night last night with a dear friend here and we cried, laughed, and talked about the experiences that have penetrated us and made us who we are today.)

Listen: Missy Higgins - Where I Stood
Read: "The wind roars by I hear it blow...and know that I am free to go."
Remember: ....you fill in the memories here. I know you have many...

*love & sunshine* xo.

Thursday Sandwich

toast
hummus
capers
sauteed mushrooms and onions
soy mayo/mustard spread
raw kale
:)

Wednesday Sandwich

Toasted Ezekiel bread
Hummus
Sliced tomato
Sauteed napa cabbage, red onion - olive oil, rice vinegar, cumin seeds, kosher salt & black pepper
Sauteed mushrooms - butter & olive oil
Soy mayo/mustard spread

Midland TX

Oil wells.
Three airlines in one small international airport.
Steak.
Super nice people.

Oil wells.
70 degree weather.
*Incredible* sunrises and sunsets.
A flat horizon that goes on for days....

Oil wells.
Drive-in three-screen theatre with double-features for $6.
Jesus.
Churches.

Oil wells.
George W. Bush's childhood home.
Permian Basin Petroleum Museum.
Expensive restaurants.

Oil wells.
Oil wells.
Oil wells.

Oh, and this amazingly accurate "Texas Roll" I saw on the Osaka menu: "Fresh Jalapeno, shrimp and cream cheese topped with a slice of roast beef and chipotle sauce" for $12.95, hahaha...let's just put cheese in it and beef on top! Welcome to Texas!