Christmas Lights

This time of year makes taking a cab so much easier. Coming home from my first Christmas party(ies) of the season on Saturday night, I was able to just say to the cab driver, "My house is where the red Christmas lights are, up there on the left" rather than saying, "About half-way down the block on the left...no not yet....right after this house...okay, here!"

Maui - Thanksgiving 2010

This was the longest vacation I've had in quite a while and now that I'm home, it's definitely taken some time to adjust back to the real world. Going to work tomorrow will be a real shock to the system! Every time the heater comes on at home, I think it sounds like waves!
Dad and I got in to Maui around 6pm on Thursday night (Linda ended up staying at home with her mom and dad) and we picked up Cindy a couple hours later. We drove to our condo, which was just north of the Kaanapali Beach area.
On Friday, we laid by the pool then headed to Kaanapali Beach and had dinner at Hula Grill near Whaler's Village.
On Saturday, we embarked on the Road to Hana about 7am. We had lots of stops, some that worked out and some that didn't (note to self - don't use an outdated guide book for the Road to Hana!). We decided to also do the "Road from Hana" and encountered about 100 cattle, 30 of which were meandering down the road alongside us. Not what you want to have to worry about when a) it's dark and b) your Jeep's "Check Engine" light is on! In all, the "back route" probably only saves you about 30 minutes. And for us, it probably took us an extra hour since we ended up taking the car back to the rental car agency. Rather than getting another Jeep (which is like having a car from the 1980's - no power locks, windows or trunk), we upgraded to a Cadillac SRX. Our dinner that night consisted of McDonald's and Pizza Hut.

On Sunday, we rested up from our busy Saturday, then went on a sunset sailboat ride before our dinner at Lahaina Grill. So yummy!

Monday was the start of the Maui Invitational. Such a bummer of a loss, though...we were up for 30 minutes of the game against UConn (the eventual winners of the tournament, even though they weren't even ranked!) and ended up losing by 4 points 83-79. The 40+ free throw attempts by UConn (thanks refs) was the nail in our coffin. There were about 300 Shocker fans there, including Don & Shirley Beggs, Brian & Joy Heinricks, a bunch of Phi Delts/Kappa Sigs and Mike Cline and his family. It was great to see so many familiar faces! And, one of the Shocker freshmen, Tyler Richardson #22, is from my hometown, Huntsville, AL! After the loss, we had burgers at Kimo's....good food and great views.

For dinner that night, we went to the Feast at Lele...a luau that's not just a luau. It was a 5 course dinner with 5 different sets of dance from different Polynesian islands, including, of course, the Hawaiian luau. It was great!

On Tuesday, we skipped the Shocker game vs. Chaminade in favor of going to the 'Iao Needle. That didn't take too long, though. It was Cindy's last day on Maui, and for dinner, we went to Mala Ocean Tavern.

After we dropped off Cindy at the airport on Wednesday morning, Dad and I did some price checking at Wal Mart and then Costco (which was a total madhouse!). Then, we headed to the Shocker game against UVA (my other alma mater) and the Shox played a great game! We ended the tournament 2-1, with the only loss being to the winner of the tournament, UConn. Still can't believe that UConn knocked off #2 Michigan State and #9 Kentucky! After the game, Dad and I went to Kimo's (again) for drinks and pupus with Mike Cline, his sister, mom and her fiance. Can't beat that view!

Thanksgiving was a lazy day. I don't think I even left the room until it was time for dinner! We went to Duke's Beach House...Dad had turkey, but I just couldn't bring myself to NOT eat seafood! I had the seafood risotto...yum!

Our last day was eventful. We got packed and watched the Bama v Auburn football game before we headed to South Maui. We went to the Shops @ Wailea and then to Big Beach, and ended the day by walking along the Keawakapu Beach (one beach north of Wailea beach) and watching the sunset...over the water and not over the mountains! We had our last dinner at Five Palms...it was a random place at the Mana Kai hotel, but was delicious! After having Mahi Mahi and Opakapaka for every meal, this place had the Walu fish, which was amazing! It was a great end to a great vacation.

10 Years Ago Today...

Driving by Wrigley Field on my way home tonight, I saw a flash of light. My first thought was, "Someone just got busted for running a red light!" But, I soon realized it was tourists taking their picture in front of Wrigley. And then I remembered, that was me exactly 10 years ago (well, 9 years and 364 days ago)!

10 years ago this very day, I stayed awake until the wee hours of the morning going back and forth between watching the Bush/Gore election coverage and working on a paper that I had to turn in early on Wednesday. (Some things, like procrastinating, never change.) On Wednesday, I turned in my paper, went to the airport and caught a plane to Chicago for my E&Y interview. Little did I know that this part of the interview process was the "Office Visit," which pretty much meant you would get an automatic job offer as long as you didn't do anything too stupid. It was basically E&Y's chance to sell the interviewees on why we should pick them over other accounting firms. Since I didn't even know what other firms made up the "Big Five" and since this was pretty much my only job interview outside of Wichita, it was a pretty easy sell!

That Wednesday night, E&Y hosted a dinner at Marche. That restaurant is closed now, which isn't surprising given the restaurant turnover here! When I got back to my hotel room at the W (although I'm not sure it was the W way back then since there's a lot of hotel turnover, too!), I tried to get the TV to work so that I could watch even more election coverage. But, none of the channels were working, so I tried pushing every button on the remote and after a while, gave up and went to sleep. After all, I hadn't gotten any sleep the night before and I had a big interview the next day! But, boy was I surprised that all that button pushing ended up as "incidental charges" on my credit card bill for all kinds of pay-per-view movies, and not the good kind!

Anyway, Thursday was the big interview day. I remember that I was wearing black pants and a light pink sweater. I remember two other things from that day:

1. In an interview, a partner asked me, "What are you passionate about?" My answer? "My sorority." Uh, I'm thinking that's one of those stupid answers that should have not resulted in a job offer. But, I pulled my foot out of my mouth and went on to explain that it was the friendships that I had made in Tri Delta that I was passionate about. Apparently, it was a good enough answer.

2. In between the interviews, we had a first or second-year auditor take us around to our different interview locations. I was thinking that these people were supposed to go out of their way to make sure we got everything we needed or wanted, kind of like how WSU hosts were supposed to go out of their way during the Barton and Gore scholarships to make sure the contestants felt welcome. So, when the interviews were over, rather than immediately heading to the airport and sitting there for 5 hours until my flight, I asked Brian, the guy assigned to me, if he'd drive me by Wrigley Field. (He'd mentioned that he lived in Wrigleyville and had driven to work that day and was going home as soon as the interviews were over.) He must have thought I was some crazy, weird dork! But, he took pity on me and drove me up to Wrigley Field. I don't think I had any idea of what to expect, but it was definitely so different than any other ballpark I'd seen. I just knew that I couldn't wait to go inside this big structure that sat right next to a McDonald's, on a city block all by itself without a parking lot in sight!

After that, I somehow managed to get to a blue line stop in Bucktown/Wicker Park where I had planned to meet up with another stranger - the Chicago Loop Group Alumnae Chapter President, Denise Lyons. Yes, she probably thought I was some crazy, weird dork, too! But, we had a nice chat and although I'd planned to take the blue line to the airport, she offered to drive me to O'Hare. She knew the secret that I would learn soon enough...although traffic sucks most of the time, at 8pm, outbound traffic on the Kennedy is smooth sailing. Now, if only that were true at other times of the day!

The next week, I got a voice mail from the recruiter and I returned the call from the phone booth at the Tri Delta house. She offered me the position and told me that the salary was way higher than what I had ever imagined. We ended our phone call and as soon as I hung up the phone, I let out a big excited yell!

Ah, memories.

Living life by the minute

# of planes missed, lifetime to date: 3 (or is it 4?)
# of trains missed, lifetime to date: too many to count
# of meetings/appointments I've been late for: WAY too many to count

Basically, I'd rather be 2 minutes late than 5 minutes early. Yesterday, though, that philosophy cost me 5 1/2 hours in the airport and an extra day of PTO.

My flight to Alabama was at 1:11. I could have left at 11am, but thought I could push it to 11:30. After all, security lines, especially in Terminal 2, shouldn't be too crazy during the middle of the day - WRONG! It was 11:40 by the time I headed out to drive to my secret parking spot at the Irving Park Blue Line. When I parked, I briefly thought, "I should probably take a cab from here. Okay, if there's a cab coming, I will take it." But, the only cab I saw just kept driving on by. So, off to the "L"...at least that will save me 15 bucks! At this time, it's 12:04. Yes, it's times like these that I am living life by the minute...watching the clock every second, thinking about what my Plan B is. I think, "If the train hasn't come by 12:20, I'll definitely go back down and get a cab." But, the train came at 12:09 and we get to the O'Hare stop at 12:33 (exactly a 24 minute train ride...mental note for next time).

When I get to the terminal, the main security line is the longest I've ever seen it. So, I proceed to the "secret" security line at the far end of the Terminal 2. No luck: Security lady says it's closed. But, it was only closed in the "grocery store lane" sense...people were still going through the line, they had just turned off the light to any new customers. This is where I made my key mistake...I should have begged and pleaded for them to let me in to that security line. Alas, I headed over to the next "secret" security line in Terminal 1. Immediately upon entering that security area, which had a long line that was only getting longer by the minute, I texted my mom (at 12:39, 22 minutes before boarding cut-off): "May have pushed it a little too close today...security line is LONG."

During the very long 21 minutes in the security line, others and I observed a bunch of (ie, 8) TSA employees standing around, not appearing to do much of anything. Had I not been afraid of going to airport jail for taking a picture of the security area, I would have  a picture of these folks to post for you. Yes, these agents may may have been on a legitimate break or had reached the end of their shift, but it's not good for customer perception to be standing around while we waited for service in a long line that only had ONE lane open.

Once I get up to the one guy who's checking boarding passes and ID's, it's exactly 1pm and I ask if I can sneak in to the "Employee and Military" line, which he kindly allows. But, I'm in Terminal 1 at this point and need to be in Terminal 2, so by the time I get to my gate, it's 1:06 and I ask "Is it too late to make the flight to Huntsville?" The gate agent responds, "Yes, it is. Are you Jennifer Morrow?" Why, yes, yes I am THE Jennifer Morrow. Who just arrived 5 1/2 hours early for her 6:54pm flight =)

Laundry Day

The upside to not having laundry in my unit? Having 8 washers and 8 dryers just an elevator ride away! And, whenever one of those washers or dryers is broken, you just have to put a note on it and it gets fixed the next day! I've been putting off doing laundry for 3 weekends, and since I'll be in Alabama next weekend, there was no more procrastinating. 9 loads of laundry (5 loads were sheets and towels) and only 3 hours later, I'm done! Now it's time to watch Giuliana & Bill, Desperate Housewives and Mad Men season finale. Ahhhh.....Sunday nights.

Annie Liebovitz

Last week, the documentary "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through A Lens" was on PBS. I am cleaning out my DVR today and I wasn't sure I wanted to spend 90 minutes watching this, so I considered just deleting it. SO glad I didn't! Aside from showing a ton of her awesome photographs, (which happen to be so much more than celebrity photographs) it was a history lesson and also a life lesson: on family and love, opportunity and mistakes made and corrected.

Great photographs can stir so much emotion and provide so much food for thought...a picture really is worth a thousand words.

What to do?

In the accounting/finance line of work, recruiters call all the time with job opportunities. I'm perfectly happy in my job 90% of the time (and the other 10% are just annoyances, not anything really bad), but one job that came across my desk recently looked interesting. Which made me think, "what's wrong with my current job that makes this one sound interesting?" I've been in my job for almost 3 years now and even though there's always something new each quarter, each quarter really ends up being the same.

So, should I look for a job in a different department? Should I seek out some new responsibilities but still stay in my current position? If the latter, how long do I stay in this position? Wait until my boss moves on to something else and then try to move into her position? That would mean that I'd be doing basically the same job from now until who knows when! So, I know that something needs to change, just not sure what needs to change or how much it needs to change.

I feel silly spending all this time thinking about what needs to change at work when, at the end of the day, I have a job that I enjoy, that pays well, that gives me lots of vacation time and flexibility and that when I leave at the end of the day, I (i) feel satisfied that I did a good job and that my efforts were appreciated by those around me and (ii) a job that I don't really take home with me. Well, except for times like these when it's all I think about day in and day out.

So, basically, I've just been around the world and back during the last week or two about my job, analyzing and over-analyzing all the potential scenarios. But, I've got too much actual work to do, so I'll put this on hold until the 10-K is filed at the end of January (or until some other opportunity comes up that I think about again).

In the meantime, I'll focus on the positive and when those annoyances creep up, I'll focus on "rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man" because life is full of things that are more important than work. Like Hannah said at one of our GC nights: "Jesus wants your heart, not your accomplishments."

Jailbait

Last night, Cindy and I saw Jailbait, a play at Profiles Theatre, the wonderful storefront-ish theatre around the corner from my house. The show is about two 15 year-old girls that sneak in to a night club and hook up with some guys in their late 20's/early 30's (see critics reviews here and here).

KEY THOUGHT #1: I mostly liked it because it was funny and entertaining, although it did make me stop and think about one thing: how plays will resonate differently with every single audience member based on what that audience member has experienced in life. Whether you are a young adult (there was a pretty young girl there), a parent of a young adult (like the one who took a phone call from her 10 year-old...see more below), family member/friend of someone who made some poor decisions in their early adult years, or if one was/is that poor decision-maker.  It just made me think that you never know what's underneath anyone's exterior, what they've gone through/are going through in life.

So, about the lady (Lady A) in the last row: She received two phone calls during the show...the phone wasn't even on vibrate, it was on full ringer mode. First of all, seriously? In a 50-seat theater? But afterward, another audience member (Lady B) approached her about her rudeness and words were exchanged:
   Lady B: It was rude of you to have your ringer on during the show
   Lady A: It was my 10 year-old daughter, I had to answer
   Lady B: Well, then you shouldn't have come to the theater then if you  
               needed to take phone calls during the show
   Lady A: You must not have a child. And, it only rang once, so what's the
              big deal?
   Lady B: No, it was twice, and you actually talked on the phone to her

After they had separated and Lady A was walking out the door with her husband (Guy A) and the couple they were with, Lady A proceeds to just bad-mouth the outfit and looks of Lady B, saying she looked like a Labrador (although Cindy thought Lady A called Lady B a whore...still up for debate, I guess).

Then Guy A is talking to some other couple as they're walking away and the three of them are exchanging words (although the Guy in Couple A could have taken Guy A easily). And then, Guy A comes up to Cindy and me, and says "Do you want to snip at me, too?". Uh, no, we're just here for the entertainment of all the grown ups acting like they're on a playground.

KEY THOUGHT #2: All of that makes me think, can't we all just get along? Yes, it feels gratifying to tell someone that they've done something wrong....we feel like we've corrected an injustice (I particularly like honking at pedestrians who walk after the "Don't Walk" sign has flashed and leaving these notes on people's cars when they don't park correctly). But, in saying and doing those things, I'm just trying to relieve myself of my anger and annoyance, but it only relieves me for a minute or two, and after that, I've forgotten about it. Or else it just leads to more anger and annoyance, especially if I continue to tell the story over and over to anyone who will listen.
And why do we even call anybody out on anything in the first place? To get them to correct their behavior? Is my honking at them or someone politely saying "You know, that was kind of rude to answer your phone during the show," going to be effective at all? Maybe somewhere down the line, at Lady A's next night out at the theater, it will. But in the grand scheme of things, it's just not worth my time and effort to try and correct everyone else's misbehaviors. Well, at least not strangers' misbehaviors...to my closest friends and family, I will still offer my opinions :)

On Time!

I started a new morning routine after Labor Day with the goal of consistently getting to work before 9:30am (I know, that doesn't seem like a tough goal, but those who know me well know that I've struggled with this all my adult life!).

 

The key to this master plan is setting two alarms: one for 6am and one for 7am. That way, I'm not changing the alarm clocks around based for special circumstances like:

     - Having an early morning meeting (although people know to ask me, and then apologize, if they have to schedule a meeting before 9am)

     - Taking the train
     - Wanting to sleep in because I: (i) have had a long week already and deserve to sleep in and therefore, be late to work, (ii) stayed up too late, (iii) just don't feel like getting up early

 

This master plan, so far, has kept me on track for all my morning scenarios:

 

A. The normal scenario - driving to work

- Sleep/snooze through the 6am alarm depending on how entertaining or annoying Eric and Kathy are that morning

- If really tired, sleep/snooze till 730 or so, but make sure I'm out of the house by 8:30am (or 8am on carpool days) to ensure a 9:30am arrival. Of course, getting to work around 9am is more ideal

 

B. The other normal scenario - taking the train to work

- I can still sleep/snooze through the 6am alarm, but have to wake up at the first sign of the 7am alarm in order to be out of the house by 7:30 to make the train

 

C. The not ideal scenario - If I have a meeting at 9am or before:

- Curse whoever scheduled such a meeting and drag myself out of bed during the first alarm. Boo =(

 

I'm tracking the # of days I get to work "on time" on the right hand side. Hopefully, I'll string so many together in a row that I'll have to just track the days I don't get to work on time.

I love this time of year, but...

This is perfect weather for sleeping with the windows open! The drawback(s)?

1. Being woken up at 6:30am by the garbage trucks
2. Cars honking at the garbage trucks when they block traffic
3. Waking up to crows crowing rather than a more pleasant sound of birds chirping
4. Groups of drunk people coming home after the bars close
5. Groups of drunk girls screaming and yelling at each other over some boy (like I had to put up with at 1am last night!)

I'll be sure to add to this list as I remember more of the drawbacks!

Introducing YesterdayToday2Morrow

So, I've had an account on here for a couple months now, but have been waiting for a clever name. Tonight, at Gospel Community ("GC") ladies prayer night, Hannah Foster was talking about her teaching blog called "Fostering Education." I thought, "what a great way to use her last name!" So, now I'm at home, watching Survivor and googling quotes about "tomorrow." I didn't find much, but YesterdayToday2Morrow came to mind. So, since this blog will be about things that have happened, are happening, and my thoughts about what will happen in the future, I decided to go with it. Enjoy!