Nomadic Ways

All is well on the home front. And the home front, it seems.

Jack and I started packing this weekend (actually, we more than "started," we're about halfway done and our house is a mess of boxes). We found out that we were formally and officially approved for our mortgage, the inspection was fine, the appraisal was acceptable (well, we think...on those sorts of things, no news is good news) and everything is moving forward according to plan.

In truth, it seems way too easy. I felt reluctant to start packing because, what if something went awry? After selling our house in SB and having so many problems doing so, I can't believe this one is so easy. It's like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Nonetheless, we're entering into another crazy time of transition. I left one coffee mug unpacked for each of us, a few pots and pans are out, and the rest of the kitchen is in boxes. We're making it our goal to eat up as much of our food as possible. It's a pet peeve of mine to move food!

Our contract on the house states that we will close no later than December 10; that we can close as soon as the lender has their side in order. Well, the lender has their side in order, so we're preparing to start moving whenever we get those keys! Official moving day is December 11 (for furniture), but if we can get our clothes and fragile stuff in there beforehand, that will be fabulous. Here's to hopin'!

Quote Journal: Integrity

Here's a good quote as we begin Advent...

"If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters."

-Alan Simpson

Go be that glowing candle in the middle of a dark world!

Coping

I've been in a strange state of disarray today. Jack and I spent exactly 23 hours in SB over Thanksgiving and managed to visit with four different sides of the family. In one word, we're, well, spent!

Thanksgiving was wonderful. It's always been one of my very favorite holidays. But something was a bit off this year. My routine was upset and I'm definitely feeling it.

First, we had to drive 3 hours Wednesday night to get back to SB (in bad weather and awful traffic, I might add), we stayed at my aunt's house overnight, and visited my mom for a scant few hours (when we usually pass out into turkey comas by the fireplace and end up watching Christmas movies into the evening when we break out the leftovers for grazing purposes). After visiting with the cutest niece and nephew in the world and our other family, we had to hit the highway. While Jack and I did fit in a viewing of "Polar Express," we headed to bed so we could go to WORK. I think it was the first time in my adult life where I didn't A) hit the mall at 4 a.m. for Christmas shopping and B) relax all weekend. This is the first time I ever worked the day after Thanksgiving.

Don't get me wrong, it was a much-needed work day. I dug out of my piles of accumulated work and will start Monday with a clean slate. But it just seemed weird to avoid the stores, sales, and ads in lieu of working a normal work day.

The other part of it is that, for the last 9 years of our marriage, I have always put the Christmas tree up on the day after Thanksgiving (or, at least, that weekend). Since we're moving in two weeks, that's a futile action and instead of unpacking the Christmas decorations, I'm packing up the rest of my stuff!

With the expense of the house, closing costs, and the large down payment due, we are scaling way, way back on Christmas this year. Our family and friends have been sympathetic to this and everyone's pretty much agreed on a one-year hiatus for Christmas gifts. While this has taken a large seasonal stressor off my plate, I feel as though I'm missing out on something! I feel as though I *should* be fighting the hoards of people for whatever the must-have items of the season are. It must be a strange twist of guilt. I feel bad I cannot purchase gifts for everyone I love this year, but I just cannot justify charging gifts. Plus, the season's not about gifts. It's about giving. And Jack and I are exploring other ways to give this season. It's actually quite liberating (I think)!

I am trying to embrace this new perspective this year. Nothing has been easy, quick, or painless this past year; what's one more challenge? Maybe it will give us more incentive to focus on Advent, too.

Despite my seemingly tough exterior, I am a softy for holiday traditions. I decided I will still put up a Christmas tree and decorate our new house...but I'll just leave the decorations up through Epiphany (instead of tearing everything down on New Year's Day, per my usual routine!). Just keep coping, right?!

T'is the Season

Regardless of my stress and ever-changing job, I have much, much to be thankful for. While trying to relax over the weekend, I thought of this list. I'm thankful...

1. For my faith. I have so many days where I feel as though I'm on the last cusp of sanity. My faith keeps me grounded and I know I can always call on God to recenter myself. Plus, it just helps when your surrounding leadership team all subscribes to the same faith tradition and you know God's somehow sustaining us all. Somehow...between all the trucker brew coffee and Red Bull!

2. For Jack. Jack's still adjusting to his new career, but he still takes time to support me, talk me off ledges, and most importantly, make me laugh. I hope everyone has someone in their lives who makes them laugh! Thank you for everything, Jack. I still can't believe I married that nerd in flannel who sat across the room from me in youth group! :)

3. For my family. Despite my crazy dreams and ambition, my family still always supports me. They put up with me working insane hours and seem to understand when I do need help. Many of my family members offer unconditional love and acceptance, good things for anyone to have....oh, and they supply me with homemade baked goods.

4. For my friends. You know who you are. Most people have good friends, but I have hit the jackpot on this one. I have several friends who would do anything for me and I would do anything for them. In short, my friends put Carrie Bradshaw's foursome to shame. Plus, they wouldn't steal my best heels!

5. For my job. I'm grateful for my career, its advancements, and the opportunities I receive at work. Regardless of my stress, I am grateful for my job each and every day I walk through the front doors of the hospital. It's easy to take any career for granted, but in this economy, I'm grateful just to have a job.

5. For the other awesome opportunities I've had. Yes, I've been able to travel and experience a lot of neat cultural events, shows, recitals, musicals, theatricals, etc. But I'm especially happy for the 'carpe diem' attitude I cultivated from somewhere. From my life experiences, I am acutely aware that life is short and we need to live the best life possible. As a result, I've worked myself to death at work, lived the heck out of each weekend, and am proud to say that I live each day as though it's my last. Y'know, just like in the words of Nickelback in "If Today was Your Last Day."

6. For those who take care of me when my body breaks down. Because I do push the envelope often (frequently? always?), Jack sometimes has to put me back together when I fall apart. Others do, too. Like the lady at Midway Airport who made me a yummy, comforting hot chocolate with hot milk when I was flying with a terrible cold. Or my assistant who, when I was sick, set hot water, a tea bag, and two packets of honey on my desk in my office. Or one of the other executive assistants who can tell when I need a strong cup of coffee in the afternoon at work (sense a theme here?)

7. For the knowledge that life is a journey and that I don't have to be perfect yet. While I'm achieving a lot at work, it's definitely, most definitely taking a toll. I'm grateful that I don't *have* to have this all down yet; that I have the rest of my life to perfect what I'm doing, where I'm going, and why. And yes, I have to keep reminding myself of this fact. Actually, can you help remind me, too?

That's the greatest realization...that none of us have to be perfect at this thing called life.

Now...where's that turkey?

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year with the five F's. Great, homemade food, family, faith, football, and fire. It's the one holiday my mom lights the fireplace and we have the ambient warmth of a Norman Rockwell scene...until the women get too hot from cooking in the kitchen and can the fire!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Boundaries

I haven't had time to say a whole lot to say this week (aside from my regularly scheduled posts!). I had a terrible, sleep-deprived week and nearly walked off the job on Friday afternoon.

Yep, I have days like that, too.

Monday and Tuesday of last week were normal days, full of meetings and on both days, I sat down in my office around 5 pm to start my "real" work. I am still responsible for a few reports, analyses, and the emails. Oh, the emails. I usually receive more than 100 per day. It's insanity. So on Monday, I think I left by 7:30 pm.

Then on Tuesday, right after I sat down to do my real work, Nurse Jackie sort of slunk into my office with a devious look on her face. She said, "Um, we need your help. Got a sec?"

Always the people-pleaser, I agreed. Nurse Jackie threw a 34-page financial report on my desk (it landed with a thud and dust scattered) and asked me to create a presentation from it. Dumbfounded, I asked why the report's owner (one of the other execs, whose identity I will not disclose) did not write the presentation. Nurse Jackie responded that this *was* his presentation. In other words, it wasn't going to work.

So insert me, coming in at the 11th hour, to try and recreate the thought process of one of our most seasoned execs. I read through the 34 page report numerous times, restructuring, trying to underline the reasoning and define an argument. I was in my office until late evening on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and finally emerged with a reasonable document.

THEN, on Thursday, I had to meet one of my colleagues from St. Piggy's at 7 a.m. for Lean training at St. Fozzie's. Joe, my colleague from St. Piggy's, is willing to help me jump-start a Lean program at St. Fozzie's; he let us use his material and traveled up to Chicagoland to help me facilitate training for 100 people. We had an awesome simulation where the leaders had to staff "St. Potato Hospital" and put a patient through the hospital by constructing a Mister Potato Head. Then we teach them how to Kaizen and have them fix a bunch of parts of the hospital. Then we have them run the simulation again, attaching the hospital stay to money, billing for each completed Potato Head, subtracting for quality defects and FTE's. The result? An operating margin. All of the hospital leaders understand the simulation in terms of the operating margin!

That went on for three sessions on Thursday and two sessions Friday. Even though my speaking part was small, about 5-7 minutes per session, I was trying to mentally support my friends and St. Fozzie's colleagues as they helped their peers understand the concepts. Many of our folks aren't seasoned speakers and were nervous. By the Friday sessions, everyone was keen on their parts and we flowed like a machine. A machine, I tell you!

However, I had an irate patient family interrupt my aura and the newest manager I just hired had her baptism by fire. So I kept having to step out to speak with her, the ICU manager, and the Director of Nursing. Fun stuff. There's nothing like speaking to groups of people and having your pager going off the whole live-long day.

But by the time the last session concluded on Friday, I was starting to crash and burn. I actually surpassed 80 hours and as I drug myself back to my office after the last session, I couldn't care less about what was going on. I had survived the week and all I could think about was my bed. I knew I had to get out of there and asked my assistant to page me only in an emergency.

I left work by 4:30pm and was home, in my bed, crashed out asleep by 6pm. Jack let me sleep and didn't bother me all evening.

I'm trying to figure out how to draw some boundaries with work so I don't burn myself out like this. I was actually sick from the stress I was under and spent most of Saturday with a sleep hang-over and a headache. Despite our house inspection on the new house (which came back perfect...they didn't require us to get anything done on the house), Jack put me to bed by 8pm so I could avoid the cold threatening to massacre my immune system!

Alas, it worked. I woke up refreshed and ready to go on Sunday. All we really did was hit mass, go for a long walk, and watch the new Harry Potter (was scary and sad). However, because we went to 11:00 mass, I spent the morning completing an ethics paper for school. I wonder if they will detract from my grade since I was working on Catholic bioethics on a Sunday morning and was, obviously, breaking the Sabbath?? Hmmmmm!

Fabulous!

I checked my horoscope on The Onion, a hysterical website that makes me laugh when I need a quick escape from work (*cough, cough*), not that I was trying to escape work.

"Your admirable decision to lead a life of honesty and moral rectitude will bring your career in advertising to a sudden and drastic end."

Fabulous!

Now, where's that trash can I need to empty? And don't I have an errand to run? Ooooh, a rerun of Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving!

Deja Vu

My life has shifted to include three central items: work, Jack, and the house (don't worry, God still counts as number 0, as the precursor to all three). The house came along at just the right time. I needed a project!

Work will probably take a lot of my time for the next 30 years. Nurse Jackie asked me to create a new service line at the St. Fozzie's (actually, she told me I'm going on a site visit to a hospital in Milwaukee and I actually had to prompt her to tell me what she was asking me to do). I was asked to create an osteoporosis clinic, to help bolster our women's care services. I'm excited about this opportunity, but stoked about the way I keep getting asked to create programs. The ol' resume is growing.

Although we both put a lot of time into work, marriage still comes first. That's why we agreed to have one weekly "date night" per week. It ends up being "go home, get into pj's, and watch America's Funniest Home Videos together on the couch," but that's okay. So that's why this house project came along at the right time. We need something else to do with our lives to get out of work mode more often. Plus, it gives Jack and I an excuse to go bummin' together on weekends.

We took our first trip to Lowe's yesterday, in search of paint colors. We spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars at Lowe's during the past several years. We refinished virtually our entire house in SB and regularly strolled the aisles at Lowe's, dreaming up ideas and color schemes for our house. Well, in the new house, it isn't much different. The great thing is that, with a new construction, everything is done. It's new and fresh and we don't have to do anything. Granted, all the fixtures and lights are contractor-grade crapola (and Jack can't stand uniform conformity!), but they are functional. Nonetheless, we strolled the aisles at Lowe's dreaming up our color scheme for the new house.

The weird part? After picking out a new chandelier, pendant lighting for the kitchen, ceramic tile, and a slew of paint colors, we realized that we're subconsciously trying to re-create our old house! We're trying to inject some character into the sterile, bland house! It's an intentional deja vu.

The other thing is that I am tempted to pick paint colors based on their names. Doesn't "Sunset Bliss" sound better than "Pale Ecru?" How about "Serenity" instead of "Washed Denim?" I particularly liked "Creme Brulee" over "Beeswax." Perhaps I shouldn't pick paint colors if I'm hungry.

Regardless, this is super fun and I'm very glad the house opportunity presented itself. It's so easy for me to lose myself in work and the Christmas season is very tough for me. So this will be a great diversion and give me something else to focus on for a while. Plus, it's just great to be able to reorganize everything. Nesting 101!

Our home inspection is Saturday (after which, we're going to hang around and measure for curtains!) and after a successful inspection, the appraisal will be completed. After that, the complete file will go to the underwriters and pending their stamp of approval, we will close the week of December 6, and move to our new house on December 11.

St. Fozzie Season

Are you kidding me? You know this whole recurrence of St. Fozzie thing we keep experiencing out here in Chicagoland? Well, I just drove by the title company we've selected to coordinate the closing of our new house. It's in a little strip mall and when I glanced up for the name of the strip mall, it was called St. Fozzie's Way.

I just laughed. This is starting to feel weird.

I think it's time to look up a short bio of St. Fozzie and accept this guy as one of our patrons. I should fashion a St. Fozzie's statue for our home. The new house has an "art niche" in the living room...which has generated a bit of conversation between Jack and me. We're talking about rotating seasonal art in the niche (little Christmas tree at Christmas, my little Easter tree at Easter, an orchid in summer, etc.). I wonder which season should qualify as Fozzie season?

I'm sorry...am so very tired and still on pain meds from my amazing (read: awful and painful) root canal experience on Friday! I've put over $4,000 into my mouth in the past few months...take it from me, do everything you can to take care of your teeth. If your kids grow up on well water, give them flouride pills so they do not have to go through this!

Joke Journal: Friars

The friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds.

Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought this was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not.

He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him.

So the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop.

Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that: Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

We're HO's Again

...As in "Homeowners!" We got our house today at a perfect equilibrium price. We paid as much as we were willing to pay and the sellers are selling for as small of a price as they'll take. It's just nuts; we got 30% off that price.

A house on sale! Even better! I'll post pictures of the inside when we get the keys in mid-December. Oh, and for the few of you who have asked, the house I posted here two days ago is NOT the real house. It just looks sort of like the two we were vacillating about and I wanted to give you the general idea.

I'm superstitious! I can't help it!

Anyway, I'm plowing forward with my usual 13-14 hour days, (barely) keeping up with my Ethics homework (which is threatening to turn me into a philosophical wreck), negotiating on the house, drinking an awful lot of coffee, AND I have another marathon dental appointment tomorrow. I have plenty of pain meds to see me through this time!

Big Brother

So ever since I granted my assistant full access to my Outlook email (she can edit, create, delete, etc.), I’ve had a bit of a complex. She will create meetings for me, invite me, then accept the invitation she (through me) created. I have meetings popping up on my calendar that I never created or even remember accepting. Or I’ll have meetings postponed (or disappear) and be none the wiser.

I feels a bit “big brother” how she can delete emails (I asked that she deleted the junk that flies through every day and print anything larger than 1MB so it doesn’t fill up my box). But the phantom meeting phenomena is something new to me! When you live and die by your blackberry, it’s hard to relinquish control of your calendar.

Me? A control freak? Get out.

Under St. Fozzie's Wing

So Jack and I hit the road yesterday and looked at five properties. Actually (blushing), we looked at four properties and one of them twice. And we have one more to see again today.

It's down to a stately villa on the Illinois border and a two-story townhouse on a road called St. Fozzie's Avenue. Okay, it's not "St. Fozzie's," but it IS the same name as our hospital. Do you believe in serendipity and all that hoopla? Because I do, to an extent. I rented my current hovel, I mean, house, sight unseen. I knew it would be okay because I logged into Google maps, input my address, then searched for the nearest Catholic church. The nearest church? You got it, St. Fozzie's.

I don't know why we've chosen to attach ourselves to St. Fozzie's (or, perhaps, he's chosen to attach himself to us), but it's getting interesting. We used to walk by this particular townhouse and think, "wow, that'd be a great place to live!" When we drove by and saw a For Sale sign in the yard, I glanced up at the street sign so I could reference the correct listing when calling our realtor. Of course, it was St. Fozzie's Avenue.

In the words of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, "Is this a joke?"

So it's down to the villa, which, for the record, qualifies as my dream house and a slightly-more modest (about 400 square feet smaller) townhouse on St. Fozzie's Avenue. We didn't think we'd find a home (or two!) so quickly. But then again, when you know exactly what you want, what you're willing to spend, and where you want to be located, it's easy to focus your search.

Is it bad that I've already been visiting the Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, and Ethan Allen websites to discern bedroom furniture choices!??!?

Silenzio!

Recently, I had the unfortunate opportunity to attend an Italian wake for one of my assistant’s family members. She’s Italian and her remaining family in Italy flew in for the funeral.

Still new to the area and the interesting culture surrounding Italians in Chicago (ahem!), I didn’t know what to expect. I knew everything would be Catholic and in Italian, but my knowledge of Italian wakes ended there. I sort of expected mobsters in pale pastel suits to storm in, twirling their tommy guns around their thumbs.

I scanned the lobby and saw a sign that said “Silenzio.” Even with my limited Italian vocabulary (I know the important words…for wine, ice cream, and the Pope), I knew “silenzio” means “silence.”

So I walked into the beautifully-decorated funeral parlor and luckily, I spotted one of my co-workers. She was walking around, looking lost. I went up to her and befuddled, she said, “I think we’re in the wrong place. I don’t know who the Silenzio family is!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle…and at least there were no obvious mobsters to report!

Condo Updates

I'm happy to report that we were pre-approved for our mortgage. We applied for the mortgage on Monday and then did not hear anything from the bank for four days. Jack called and they said they hadn't gotten to it yet. I finally called the bank on Thursday afternoon and told them, if they couldn't make a decision, I had other banks who would quickly get my business. The loan officer pulled our file and called me back in 5 minutes with a resounding "yes."

Then I went home and discovered a huge packet from the same bank with our pre-approval notice and more paperwork to fill out. Whoops. They could have called! It would have saved me a quasi-embarrassing, stern phone call to the poor loan officer who happened to pick up my call.

Anyway, we're happily on the market for a condo. The walls in our current apartment feel like they're closing in on us...each time we visit a nice, new condo and return home to our hovel, it feels smaller and smaller! So we're definitely excited about this prospect.

Plus, we know exactly what sort of condo we want (basically, two of everything...two bedrooms, two baths, two-car garage). While the Beer Garden condo is still in the running, we are looking a several others tomorrow. We have our list of pro's and con's and our non-negotiables.

So, hopefully, we will have a home by New Years! Hurray!

Managerial Pickle

I have a problem I need to air and could use your feedback on this one. It's more of a difference of philosophies, but it's affecting me.

I'm in a director role. I have seven managers that report to me. I inherited all but one of them, so I am doing my best to work with them and collaborate whenever we can. Two of these managers tend to have guilt complexes (of sorts). Their employees (numbering from 2-16) are front-line staff who keep the clinical areas going. Most of them perform well and do their jobs day-after-day without much change in their routines. However, these front-line staff sometimes have family situations that are problematic. It might be a socio-economic difference, a divorce, or kids going off to school. Whatever the case, some of the front-line staff are not the best stewards of the money they earn at work and tend to look to the hospital to bridge the shortfall.

In short, they don't prioritize their earnings well, live beyond their means, and then blame management for not paying them enough.

I understand this situation, really. However, I feel like I'm in a Catch 22 situation when the managers come to me and say, "Patty is a reliable employee. She's here consistently and does a good job. But she's having a hard time at home right now, can we please pay her more?" No, we cannot.

While I am sympathetic toward these employees' hard home lives, I am not responsible for how they choose to spend their money. I pay them a fair wage and our Human Resources department annual evaluates everyone's wage to make sure they are consistent with the rest of Chicago. I do my absolute best to be fair and consistent in my managerial approach, and to boot, I am still under the administrative hammer of cost control. I cannot just extend raises to employees because they feel they need more take-home pay. And I do not think it is fair to others. For example, what about employee "Tony" who manages his money really well and chose to forego the huge plasma television set that Patty has?

I guess it stems from needing to work with the managers more often so they understand the context. They all know our financial landscape and we repeatedly communicate that our wages are at median for the rest of Chicago….but with these two managers, it is not sticking. They keep raising this concern to me with hopes that I will change my mind. I'm not going to waiver, but I'm not sure how to get these managers to grasp the concept that we're paying our employees equivalently and it is not up to us to save them from their personal financial crises?

Thoughts…?

Beer Gardens

So the news of the day is that Jack and I appear to be house-hunting. Er, I mean, condo-hunting. We already decided that we do NOT want a house; the maintenance and yardwork-free lifestyle is completely worth the association fees! That's how we chose to spend Halloween 2010.

We have been trying to live the humble lifestyle (read: packed like sardines in an 800 square foot apartment...coming from a house nearly twice the size of that). My bachelorette pad was fine when it was just me and Jack would come to visit every third weekend. But now, with some of our furniture, the crystal and small appliances that we received for our wedding, and my beloved shoe collection, we just don't fit. Plus, we're literally tripping over each other during our morning routines. Jack leaves when I do and has to get all gussied up now for work. While it's great that we can guzzle our (Caribou!) coffee together in the mornings, this tiny apartment just isn't working out.

When you can get something cluttered up in the span of 10 minutes, it's not good. I abhor clutter and I mess up the living room just by setting down my crapola from the day.

So we're in the market for a condo. We briefly tossed around the idea of moving downtown, but it makes more sense to stay in our Chicagoland suburb. We know and love the area, it's a decent commute to work, and we're only 20 miles from the Loop. We haven't called the bank for a pre-approval yet (that's this week), but we toured a couple condos yesterday.

One was in what can only be described as a retirement community, but it was GORGEOUS. Rose-colored brick with huge windows, it was nearly brand-new and offered stunning blond wood floors, cathedral ceilings, two bedrooms, wainscoting in the office, and two huge bathrooms (hurray!). The kitchen was okay, but the open concept was great and allowed a lot of light inside.

Then we visited a two-story townhouse (also with huge windows) that had two bedrooms, two glorious bathrooms, an awesome kitchen with an island, and a loft (for a cool office! Hurray!), a two-car garage, and a beer garden.

Seriously, a beer garden. There's about a 15-foot space between the French doors and the garage...just enough space to set up a couple of chaise loungers, a grill, and string up some lights for summertime parties. As we walked out, Jack leaned over and said, "Can we just buy this one? I want a beer garden!"

We're looking into this and while we have a general idea of our price range, I think we're going to move forward and see what the bank has to say. Despite our rotten experience selling our house in SB, now we'll get to be the buyers in the buyers' marketplace and make all sorts of crazy demands on the sellers!

Just kidding.

But if, for some crazy reason, we end up buying that townhouse with the beer garden, Jack said we have to clear a tiny patch of the yard, put down some dirt, and "plant" a couple empty beer bottles in the ground. Y'know, for a beer garden. Hey, admit it's a funny idea.

So more to come, I'm sure. I do have to admit that it's WAY more fun to be a buyer than a seller in this market!