Here I An Still

So, tonight after work I turned off the TV, set a time, and dedicated an hour to reading.  I finished up a poetry book by Mary Oliver (who I always get confused with Jane Olivor) and then read a couple of pages in Josemaria Escriva's book "The Way".  For those who aren't familiar with him he was the founder of the Catholic Order of Opus Dei.  Both reads really helped me find the still point of the night. 

Today was a "come to Jesus" meeting at work, which was part of my stress load.  In our last block release I had two projects that I delayed because they were not ready for release. In my imagination I conjured a lot of sturm und drang for the meeting.  In fact though, it went very smoothly. I explained why I delayed the projects, the reasons for the delay, and the response from leadership was "okay, that makes sense".  I've got a good imagination and sometimes it gets away from me imagining negative scenarios. It is a trait I am aware of and that I try to counter with limited measures of success.

So, now that we are through the block release we just have to close on these two projects and then we can pivot over to the July block release.  I am sitting much better for the July block as the lead time is wider.  The last release had a very tight lead time - we know better, but periodically we can't avoid it and we suffer because of it.  Hopefully, there will be less suffering in this next block release.  Though, if you go back through this blog and read entries from years ago you'll find very similar entries.  It is a function of being a project management that you're always locked in battle with the inherent conflicts between resources and schedule.

Other than that, it was a nice day.  We've got a bit of rain coming in, but the afternoon was very pleasant, the bird tribe was very entertaining, and the day had it's bright spots.  Tonight is the latest episode of "The Expanse" so I am looking forward to watching it on DVR tomorrow.  I will probably save it for tomorrow night and then do my usual routine, which is to order pizza and enjoy the show.  Also, exciting of exciting - Archer comes back!  In you are not an Archer fan, or if you've never seen the show before, it comes with a high recommendation from me

On that note, I am going to wrap it up and call it a night.

A Spot of Tea

Chaos Tea would be a good name for a band.

It is a little after 7 o'clock in the evening here in California. The workday was as chaotic as I expected. I had a solid block of meetings from 8:00 AM until 1:30 PM. That is always brutal on a Monday because everyone tries to hit the deck running and email are flying all over.

I made it through the day and tomorrow's calendar is fairly clear, so I've blocked out some time for what I called Project 125. It's the number of backlogged email I want to try and get through.

I wrapped work around 5:00 PM then popped out for a bite to eat at a local dinner. It was tasty and quite which is exactly what I was looking for. After dinner I circled back home, restocked my tea box, and made myself a nice cup of Harrowgate of London Orange & Lemon tea to savor as the sun sets on a beautiful evening.

My mind is kind of exhausted from all the mental gymnastics of the day so my energy is running a bit low. Savoring a cup of tea has restorative powers, even more so when it's coupled with the poetry of Mary Oliver (which I always get confused with the music of Jane Olivor).

So, with a cup of good tea and a good book of poetry I wish you, dear reader, all of the good things in life - and tomorrow is another day!