Weekend With The Girls

I think I actually had a rather interesting topic for this week to share, but I forgot about it. Go figure. It happens, right? Back in 2012 I was a tad more organized and used to have these ideas far better caught in paper, stored in a notebook for whenever I wanted to write but had no idea wht to write about. Oh, what happened to that good system? So sad when we let go of great systems that work for us. But I won't go into that - I'll rather go back into using my notebooks, for which now comes handy my lovely new notebook ^_^ - and instead I'll write a little bt about the week itself.

This week I shipped my stuff from Hungary to Costa Rica, flew back home with my brother and then we went back to the office. I don't suffer from jetlags, but still all the tiredness of the trip came in bouts at night, when I've been falling dead to the world at night. Work has been feeling ok, quite reflreshing, if I must say so. Work actually feels nice, and it feels good to go to the office everyday, which I enjoy and feels my heart with gladness. It is horrible, though, at the same time to see my country start falling in shambles, the company I work were also start shedding into nothing as wave after wave of unemployment hits it, throwimg more and more people to the streets to starve.

However, before we even go into political conversations here, let's move to a nicer, lighter topic. As part of our little holidays, the girls and I decided to rent a room at a nice hotel and hole up in it to organize a sort of slumber party. We had movies - mostly Sherlock of the BBC - and then drinks and long, funny chats and laughter and free snacks and so on.

The hotel to which we went is one that belongs to the Barceló hotel chain, and I must say that this is the second time I come here on a "geek retreat", as the girls and I call it, and I'm just as displeased. I mean, the place is nice, the room is beautiful, the view and the facilities are wonderful, but the service, dear Goodness, it's dreadful! Truthfully, it's amazing how the service goes out of their way to be unserviceable. Not all of them, but it's amazing how you call for an extra towel because there are only two in a room for three people and you have to wait HOURS for the towel to arrive. And call again and again for it.

This time around, however, the girls and I also decided to make use of the pool this time around. I again forgot to pack up my bathing suit, so Lau and I went to a store to buy me a new one. It was quite an experience to know I could get myself a two piece bathing suit and wear it confidently. ^_^ It's good to know that hard work and discipline has its rewards, and such great rewards.

The girls and I had a great time at the pool and then went and relaxed at the jacuzzi. We spent two nights recharging our batteries, hardly leaving the hotel, enjoying the soft beds and the Club Premium.

Little breaks are needed to make our daily lives more bearable. You don't need to fly anywhere, don't even need to leave town, just move out of the usual, spend a weekend at a hotel, pamper yourself and have fun.

A Heavy Week

This week has been... a little bit of a mess, so this entry will be short. Short. It can't really say that my week was busy or full, but it has been full of stuff and... things. I've been running after some stupid copier guy who was supposed to get my a text xeroxed by Tuesday but had it by Friday, and did some damage on the original text. Work hasn't been the satisfying thing it had been in the past, and the strain of fighting to keep my position on certain things drains me quite some. I've been waking up late and tired everyday, and have been going to bed beaten up and wishing for vacations. What had happened this week???? It's like there have been a bull sitting on me all week long. It got me quite down, truth to be told. Can only hope this week that begins will be much lighter for me than the one I just left behind myself.

I did have a little of fun too, so don't worry. Carrie, Kate and I met at Carrie's and watched some episodes of Love Stage, Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-Bu Love and Vikings. We had fun chatting, eating and sharing stories. I was surprised that Carrie's younger sister took time to talk to me. As far as I knew it, she didn't like me much, but yesterday she talked a lot to me about a lot of social topics, including some painful things of her personal life. Wow. I must say, I was quite taken aback by her. Was that for real? All of it? Kate made it, but got there rather late. We are all worried about her.

Oh well, this is it. I've some work, some projects, but all I want to do is read some. I need some rest.

A Geek Weekend Out

This weekend my friends Carrie, Kate and I went to a hotel in town to, basically, enjoy a big-girl slumber party. I would say an "adult slumber party", but that would make you think we had sex, and that's not what happened: we spent from Friday night to Sunday noon holed up in our hotel room indulging in series and movies of our guilty pleasures :-D.

The idea came by the end of last year, but I can't tell you exactly how. We have spent quite some time together and have gone of one-day trips to places where you can go swimming (it's not a wellness place, but like a family, entertainment center), where all we did was watch series and movies on an iPad and talk about fanfics. Believe it or not, it was amazing, and we enjoyed ourselves very much. The idea somehow had stuck, that we should do this again, but staying a larger period of time, so we could actually watch more series and more movies. We have already talked about doing a trip to Salem sometime in the future (when we can afford it), but then we actually wanted to do something sooner, while the girls still had their vacation. Thus, in a somewhat unorganized way, we ended up booking a room for the three of us at a hotel close by with this sole purpose in mind: watch movies and series.

We considered going to the beach, but really, was it worth driving all the way to the beach (I don't mind driving, I love driving!) only to end up holed in the room watching series? Because in that case, why would we even waste time on the road, when we could be already watching a movie? There was no actual program or plan as to what we wanted to watch - get on track with Supernatural, maybe, and then some Hannibal, some Sleepy Hollow - and somehow, a passion of theirs, old passion of mine, also got into the mix. The yaoi.

Carrie packed up the old hits we loved watching back when we met, and then they showed me new shows of which I have never heard, which were nice, sweet, and even disturbing. For instance, there's this series about guys - some "Binan" something - that's like a Sailor Moon with guys... only terribly corny and girly. And somehow, even some parts just make you look away for it's too corny to endure, I think I like it.

Am I going back to animé and yaoi? No, I don't think so, and if so, I'll make sure to stop before I get as sucked up by this world as I once was. However, it's nice to indulge, nice to be silly a little, unplug from the normal world, and spend some time with your best friends being plain silly, happy, carefree, all day laying in bed and eating snacks, drinking sweet beverages and cocktails and laughing out loud with your friends. Come up with funny tasks, like each of us has to find and review a fanfic from a fandom that's not Teen Wolf (Carrie and I are slightly obsessed with Sterek fics, but then again, it's not our fault Kate had developed a distaste for this fandom, and rather indulge in Star Trek, which is her only fandom since... a couple of years now), or make plans to start watching more and more series, like... yeah, I'm not into it again that much, so I won't even attempt at going on with the Japanese names.

Whatever your life is, whatever your circumstances, truth is that you do need a little time out with your friends, a break to simply be silly, be carefree. It charges you up and makes you feel... amazing. ^_^

A Filofax-Week

Well, of course my week is a filofax-week as I plan my days and weeks and months in my lovely filofax! But what I meant to say was that this week had a particularly "filofaxish" feel to it. You see there have been all sorts of matters rolling around my nice, dark head regarding my filofax, and some strangely - and not so strangely - interwoven with my work.

Now, as you know - at least some of you do - I work at the biggest telecommunications company of Costa Rica. State owned, proud to be, Union member and all that. However, the thing is that when you work at a telecommunications company you are somewhat expected to keep up with technology. You do see people carry paper planners, but most of those are either planners they get from the company, or those they buy from our stores, or planners they get from our providers. You know how it is, do you? Some company wants to be the next getting a contract for a software, a softswitch, a new platform, or simply a consulting contract and they stop short from handing each person attenting to the meeting the kews for their new cars. Yes, all of them in suits while you sit there maybe in your jeans, but as you have the upper hand you inspect the fitting an the fabric of their suits, the cleannes of the cuffs, the edges of the clothes, and if something strikes you as less than what you'd see on advertisement, the company is cheap and you won't hire them.

Anyway, that's not the matter here. The matter is that in our company, in our industry, people simply don't do paper planners, unless they already have it lying there and want to put it to good use. Okay, sure, lots of women get their thick, spiralbound, sticker filled girly planners, or even the popular themed ones, like Mafalda or Paulo Coelho planners, but that's it. The rest of the people use their phones - 90% of which are iPhones or Samsungs (they all look alike) - and the rest use their company scheduled Blackberries (those are given to people on a higher rank, and yes, they are all Blackberries). So when you carry a filofax to a meeting, it's like you are taking something from a museum. It's the "oh, wasn't that the book in one of those movies from the 80's?". Well, this week at one of the meetings I had - and since I'm at this new position I go to much, much more meetings than ever before in my life! - one of our counterparts from the company had a Franklin Covey planner.

The first thing that struck me was the size of the rings. I could have fitted my wrist in them and could have worn them as a bracelet! Is it supposed to double as handcuffs? It was so strange to see someone else carry a planner, and then actually use it to take notes in it. I don't take work notes in my filofax, I use a livescribe notebook and pen for that - plus my planner is less of an "all work" instrument, for me to use it to take down work notes in it. The second thing that got my attention was that in spite of having bangle sized rings, this guy had only a couple of pages in it. And I mean, 20-30 max. This had me flabbergasted. Why would you have humongus rings and then waste all that ring-space in a couple of sheets you can secure with a paperclip? For that many pages you might as well carry them in an envelope and save yourself some space.

After the meeting was over I stood behind to ask the misterious planner-binder-owner about his contraption. That's were I knew it was a Franklin Covey, that the pages were undated and that actually a $26 pack contains only two months' worth of pages, thus the wasted ring-space. I wasn't going to tell him that Filofax users usually stuff their binders like they stuff turkey for Thanksgiving. He said he liked Franklin Covey because usually he could get the inserts at Office Depot or at the Franklin Covey center. I mentioned I have a filofax, but I have to have my stuff mailed to me from the U.S. which for the average Costa Rican is now quite a customary thing to do: we no longer relay on the importers, but get things for ourselves thanks to online shopping and smart addresses in Miami. However, some people do prefer things "now", instead of paying for shipping, handling and maybe customs too that rocket the price 100% more, and on top of it wait for a week to get things delivered.

Now, though I have been thinking about my planner somewhat, specially because the closing clasp has continued to rip, this week this close encounter of the third type with the FC entity got my head rolling again about my binder. I went to the FilofaxUSA page, and started browsing for my next filofax - oh boy, my next filofax! I never thought I'll hear myself say that! - but didn't really find anything to my liking. If the cover was nice, the corners weren't tucked in the way I like them. If they did, then there was a zipper right where I don't need it, or the card slots were wrong, or the back was bulky, ot the leather's texture was too flashy... I know, I'm a hard case to work with. I hope I can finish 2013 with my Sketch because it's really a perfect planner and I've gotten to love it dearly, and so I have time to warm up to the thought of another one... not Sketch.

So far the one I see rather acceptable is the Fusion, but the inner distribution isn't to my liking. I know, I know, my problem is that it isn't a Sketch. Then the material looks a lot like denim, and that's off putting because that takes away the professiona look I expect from a filofax, but hey, I still have time to think about it.

From there I've been thinking also about the inserts, and the thought of the dividers came to me again. After having an impossibly full filofax with over 15 sections (yes, don't ask me how I did it, you don't want to know), teamed in three macro sections (yeah, that was grand), I slimmed down and used post-it flags instead of dividers. Did it work? Not as perfectly as my dividers, so after a while - today, actuall - I reinstated the flyleaves (all six of them) to mark some of my most important segments, basically because flyleaves are much thinner than regular dividers, BUT... how should I lable them? The tabs are all at the same height and I really don't want to cut them off. Also... would need at least 10 flyleaves more (okay, I can order that, that's not much hassle), and if I do, shall I also consider embelishing them by putting some picture under it I can take anytime I want?

Then I'm back to the sections... which should I take out to thin it down? I could take the calling card holders, and maybe a couple of plastic envelopes, but as I think of it, I believe I need more sections! Specially after last week. The last day we had a little "Action Movie" situation, thanks to the fact that one of my coworkers - the one I work most with - doesn't have the type of communication skills that work with me. You see, he tends to embelish his speaking with all sorts of important sounding words, and then has attention issues, so he would talk to you like you could hear his thoughts and fill in the blanks. There was something that had been basically assigned to him, or he was in charge of (he went to a meeting were details of it were hammered down, and I wasn't even let in the details), but for the day things came to be, he was out in vacations. Right before he went - the next day to be precise - he casually mentioned the case, but never mentioned the deadline or that it was a Live-or-Die situation. Well, in his absence, with him not picking up the phone (though he loves so send work e-mails in Saturdays and Sundays), I had an adrenaline filled day, where I ran, phoned and made deals like a veritable Andy Sacks. By the end of the day, I managed to send the stuff - thought it seems part of it was lost somewhere, because there was something else, but I never got the info I needed to get things rolling - and I was mad at this guy for not giving me the headsup.

Saturday he actually had the nerve to answer to one of my sms with a "No, I did tell you". Yeah right, because "Oh, do call Annie and remind her to send you 'the data' (which data? No clue), but don't worry much because they'll sure will be late with it, so we'll send it next week", is the same as "Look, Annie's people must send you the A Data tomorrow, and that has to get mailed to Roxy at B Institute tomorrow before 2 o'clock or we will face death". Is it only me, or you also see the lack of important information here? Well, I decided I won't have this any longer, so next week I'll grab this guy, sit him down and take over the control of all our operations. I'll set up a meeting table, a way for him to tell me what he's doing, with whom, when is it due for and what it is about, so the next time he decides to walk away on vacations right before an important date either I ask my boss not to let him, or at least I'll be able not to depend on his pompous blable and know exactly what's going on. For that my mind is already working on an insert for project. I used to have one but it didn't really worked the way I wanted it to work, however with the idea I have now in mind, and the type of projects or "cases" I'm working with, I could definitively use the old system or a variation of it.

Tomorrow I don't have to get to work because of the visit of the Chinese President - yes, now everybody get's the "Obama Treatment", so I have one extra day to calm down and declutter my head. I'll get on my Cleaning Program, and tackle the things I've stashed in two closets, specially now that I've suggested my folks that for my birthday they would give my closet a revamp: I want new divisions and new doors - mirrored. So yes, since I'll have to move my stuff already so it can be teared down and worked on, I have an extra incentive to just go through everything and decide what stays and what must for ever leave.

Decluttering... yes, I should do that with my filofax as well.

A Nice Saturday

Archery Competition with recurved bow

This Saturday started early. Actually I set my alarm clock for 7 am, but I was so excited I was up by 6 am. It was Archery day! The last one of the year, so yes, I wanted to be there early so I could practice more. The trip was easier than last time becase this time I knew the way. There was, however a little situation I wasn't aware of: since this was the last day and it wasn't part of the course I paid to the University, but a day of the Archery Club, they were taking level exams. All the archers tried at 10, 15, 20 and 30 meters and if they passed (at least 3 arrows out of 6 in the red rings of the target), they've got a level designation going from 1 to 4. Only another guy and I were sort of new - one lesson each previously. The head of the club was a bit lost about what to do with us, but invited us to stay and told us we could practice on the 10 meter target when all the archers have passed the first level. That waiting took about two and a half hours. It was cold and a bit messy, but it was interesting. Most people used recurved bows (the regular ones, like the one the girl is using in the picture), basically because those are the ones the Club and the University has for lending. However some people brought and tried out for tests composed bows. Those are not so pretty. Those are smaller and have many strings and little wheels on the end. I don't like them.

After two and a half hours, the guy and I finally got to the target, so I strapped on a full lenght armguard, a tap, and grabbed one of the black bows. Last week I shot with a 20 pound bow, but someone took that one, so I went for a the 16 pound one. This doesn't mean that the bow weights 16 or 20 pounds, but has something to do with the force the bow can produce in a shot. The 16 pound feels softer too, and as result it won't send your arrow that fast.

Since I had other plans, I practiced for 30 minutes, time during which my right hand got red between the thumb and the index finger due to the pressure of the bow. It was nice to hear the instructor compliment me on my shooting, which wasn't perfect, but rather good for someone with as much knowledge as I have.

After archery I went to the mall close by to get some stuff for my lawnyarns and grab some lunch. I tried out a pizza hut place in a style I haven't seen before. All the personal pizzas had cheese in the edgem though I didn't know about it, and they offered other styles of pizza than the regular ones for a personal pizza.

Reception Room of the Old Airport. Carved mural.

From there I went to my favorite part of my program: the Costa Rican Art Museum. I wanted to go yesterday after work, but the museum closed right before my nose, so I couldn't explore it. I was curious and wanted to know what kind of art would they show. Well, I was taken off my back. The expositions were basically about a turn of the century painter-sculptor, Paco Zúñiga and a second half century sculptor called Néstor Zeledón. The sculptures weren't all that nice, with lot of emphasis on the torso and the hips of all the human figures. All the hips were large or bony, and all the ribcages stuck out. There was one carving I liked a lot because it worked using traditional Mayan designs. 

The paintings and sketches, however, were beautiful. There were a few I didn't like that much, but the ideas and the general style was beautiful. I also discovered Juan Manuel Sánchez, an artist who did the beautiful drawings for many of my childhood fairy tales. :-) It was such a beautiful experience!

Designs for "The Tales of My Auntie Panchita", by Juan Manuel Sánchez

Then, as this museum is located in the building of the old airport, the reception room was left empty so the guests could check out the beautiful carvings that told the history of Costa Rica from the pre-Colombine time to 1940, when the Airport was built.

All my thoughts about how poor Costa Rican art is changed. :-) I'll be visiting the museum quite often now! :-)

Friday Under Pressure

It does feel like TGIF today, and yes, TGIF! Though screaming in joy might be a little bit early just now, as there are plans ahead that could complicate an otherwise joyous day's layout. Then again, the end of the year is coming and a lot of people and groups suddenly feel the rush to close up on things that have been lagging for, oh say... 11 months? Yep, that happens. I wouldn't mind it so much , except that it really annoys me when these people - pressed by time, feeling the deadlines breathing down their necks - try to push-press things forward, expecting mistakes and shortcomings to be overlooked (and then whet those explode, they would just step back and point at the very people they have pressed for a speedy forwarding, as them being the culprits of not catching the mistake), and actually have the nerve to blame others for what's their fault to begin with.

I would like to resource to my inner sanctuary and find mental peace to navigate through the waves of incompetence, but I can't even master a simple chaturanga in yoga, so I won't even try. Instead I'm gathering up my professional weapons, also known as Plan B, while coating myself and my work with teflon to avoid any responsability or blame to stick on me, when I'm clearly not the responsible. Hell, I really hate it when work starts to look like an episode of Game of Thrones.

Then again the workday will end at some point, and I'll be free. To celebrate and unclutter my mind, I have thought about checking out the Costa Rican Art Museum.

Museo de Arte Costarricense

I haven't been at a museum since I came back from Hungary, which is comprehensible given the few museums in Costa Rica, their odd opening hours (they keep office hours, so basically anyone working a regular job is bound from visiting them), and often also their poor and even uninteresting collections. Yeah, sad but true. I'm not a fan of contemporary art, specially because most of it looks to me like someone just heaped up a bunch of garbage, peed on it and displayed it in an otherwise empty gallery, so I hope to see something that really speaks to me today. We do have good artists, but so far I haven't found a single remarkable Costa Rican artist, so by checking I hope to find our Jesús de Soto or our Alejandro Otero (Venezuelan artists I admire).

Jesús de Soto: "Azul y Negro" (Blue and Black) Scupture displayed at the Chacaíto square.

Alejandro Otero: "Estructura Solar" (Solar Structure). Displayed at the Fine Arts Museum.

Who knows? Maybe today I'll be WOW-ed. ^_^

First Archery Class

First day of Archery and I love it! Got hurt with the string of the bow, and I'm actually quite proud of it :-) The trainer said it was a "rite of initiation", but then it happened because I wasn't wearing an arm protector. Most of the people in the class was quite an expert, and only another guy and I were beginers, though the guy had some experience - real experience - with the bow and arrow. Next week we'll have the last lesson of the year - I wasn't aware of that, but sure as hell, I'm going. ^_^

Getting to the Archery camp wasn't easy, specially because someone mislead me about how to get there. Well, plenty of people was misleading about how to find the archery camp within the Sport Facility of the UCR, but in order to get to the Sport Facility I wasn't sure about a certain street, or more like an exit of a rotary. It was the key exit to go to the city part where the Sport Facility was located. I knew the old exit was closed, so I had asked this friend about how to get there. She insisted the exit was open. I don't go there often, so there was a chance I remembered wrong, or I hadn't paid attention. However, I wasn't wrong, despite of this friend saying she had used the exit not a week ago. Then again, there's nothing asking around can't fix, so I asked a cab driver and quickly found the right path.

I've conquered Sabanilla!

Now I must practice and work towards conquering Archery. ^_^

Oh Black Friday

Friday. Tired Friday, may I add, with a credit card that suddenly maxed on me (got immediately paid, so no damage there!), and waking up at the wee hours of the day to click check out on my cart at Amazon.com and get my Black Friday on the go. In some three hours and twenty minutes my work week is over, and you know what will I do? I'll go straight home, change into my pj's, climb into my bed, get under the covers and watch TV until I fall asleep, which most likely won't take me more than 20 minutes, if I'm lucky. 2 minutes if I'm not. And I still haven't seen "The Perfect Student" nor Margin Call, ans I really want to!

Why is it that this time of the year weeks seem to be much shorter than usually? Have you noticed that too? Things are piling up as well, as I have to plan out my gift lists - I plan to make most of the gifts myself, but others are not that simple - and then there are plans already in formation for 2013. :-)

However, be it as it may, my Black Friday purchases are done, and my only plan for the weekend are resumed to: rest, rest, rest, rest and sleep. :-) Oh, I have many, many good plans! Maybe some scrapbooking, some crocheting myself a new hat... anything relaxing. ^_^

Accomplished! ^_^

I still haven't finished all the items in my List of 13 - I'm actually quite behind - and then there's this thing with this document I'm reviewing, and not to mention the article I should be drafting up and sending to my friend Mile, so she can also go over it, since naturally we will be coauthoring it, BUT all in all, I feel quite accomplished. I updated my noting of blogposts on my planner - still an old planner, not my filofax - and bought all I had on my pending groceries list, ran the errands I had planned for the week - except the checking of the archery class - and went though successfully with everything.

The advance on the document - the work document - is quite good, so I can start relaxing now and maybe focusing on other things - like the lot of letters I have to reply - and slowly get on top of everything. Or everything that matters.

Family is over for lunch - pizza as usual, as the kids and I both love it - so I'm leaving for another day a topic I had in mind about the world of filofaxes and planners. So this is it for today!

Pulling Work on Weekends

I must update my planner and add to it the titles of my posts, as I had been doing it until... July? Oh dear, I'm so behind! Hopefully once I have my beloved and much expected filofax, I'll make a Blog tab on it to keep the record of my posts, and also include all my little notes with post ideas. The reason I do this is because my memory is really short and I'm really affraid that I'd be repeating myself - which without question I have done countless times by now. Sure, I could check the listing on the bar of the blog, but I always enter into the dashboard, and the view from there isn't that clear. Oh, and since I'm so hooked on the filofax - even if I still don't have it in my hands - I'm creating a filofax tab in here as well. Eventually gara go back and mark all my filofax related posts, so if anyone interested in filofaxes want to read posts on the subject, they can. Yes, there are people who do that, and we are many. However that won't happen today.

Yes, today I'm meeting with my friends Kate and Carrie to go to the movies. We are going to watch Skyfall. Yes, this will be the fourth time for me, and yes, I realize that I'm lagging regarding my original purpose. I expected to be hitting the 10th-mark soon, and be at least on 6 or 7 now, but I'm only on 4, co maybe I'll go again tomorrow, or cram up three times next week. The chances for hitting 10 in the next week are very, very slim, as something unpleasant happened at work. Not deadly or pink-slippy, but unpleasant.

Around Tuesday a coworker and I were requested to check on a request document and send back our opinion about the calculus metodology. The e-mail with the instructions had to PDF documents attached, and the both of them together didn't make more than 35 pages. We were also told that "Legal agrees with it, so we are not going to rebuke this", so our job was simply to review the way the money calculations were done and say whether it was ok or not. Our deadline is this Wednesday. I was honestly surprised that such a small job got so many days, when the usual drill here is to give a couple of hours for a freaking huge job. So I checked the document and found out that many things were missing. I requested for them and the reply I've got was "work just with that, you don't need more". May I point out that I requested documents and files referenced in the document, so I wasn't looking for unexisting documents. With this I was told the afore mentioned "Legal endorses it, so you don't need to 'over complicate' things". So I read the document patiently, made my notes, worked on other stuff - because we had the time - and yesterday I compiled all my notes in a document and sent it to my coworker so they can add their own comments.

Yes, well, the enclosed documents weren't the document we were supposed to be checking, but a document for which a link was provided - a broken link. 30 minutes before leaving, on Friday, I've got the document. It has some 200 pages. Okay, lots of it are annexes, there are plenty of tables, its on double line format, and a part of it I've already read. Yeah, except that I'm a very thorough type of person, and since I have been finding things that don't make sense, I tend to copy all the tables into Excel to make sure that the numbers add up as they should, and these are really large table, with ten columns or more of numbers and some 100+ rows and nine figure figures, depending on the type of code used.

I'm still going out to watch 007 again with my friends, but one thing is for sure: I won't have much time for Skyfalling until after Wednesday.

Tuning Skills and Going Homemade

Clothes are like fanfiction - at least for me: you have idea of what you want, so you go looking for that and you find everything in the world, but not the one thing you are looking for. Often, as it is my case, the things you find don't really please you. So, as with the fanfics, where after having searched for a story with particular characteristic and not finding it, one has to write the fanfic one wants to read; so with clothes, the logical outcome is that when you don't find what you want to wear, you must make it. Now, making clothes isn't an easy business, as you should get the pattern you want - maybe transform it to fit your desires - and then cut the fabric and sew it.

For someone not used to sewing much - my most prolific time was when I was a kid and I sew dresses for my Barbie dolls - even cutting the fabric can be a challenge. I had once made myself a pair of trousers and a skirt, but that was a very, very long time ago. So, wanting to sew, I decided to tune my rusty skills with a simple project, and so I did the little tote bag you can see in the picture. It was made following advise from blogs and watching youtube videos. And let me tell you something, making it isn't as easy as it's shown on the Internet. My bag, even if simple (and it's lined), and with changes I didn't seen in the blogs and videos I watched, didn't turn up as sharp as it was supposed to. It does work fine and the mistakes are small - from far and when full of stuff you can't really tell them - so I'm pleased. ^_^

A while back I sew a bag for my yoga mat, and that turned out quite sharp, but that's basically because I did the whole project by hand. My problem is sewing with a machine. Now, I won't sew my clothes all by hand, so yes, I need to get sharper with the machine. That means, that probably more tote bags are lining up in my close future. Wish me luck!

Weekend of Art

It's a really sunny weekend, with a gentle breeze and nice Decemberish kind of feel to it. I mean "tropical December", which is what would be something like March-April in Europe, in those cases when the weather behaves properly and you get that nice little sunny day that feels good on the skin, but you still put on a light sweater and pack an umbrella. Actually on Friday someone commented somewhere - could be on Twitter for all I remember - that the day was very Christmas-like. This is our winter season, the deepest of our winter and it should be pouring like hell, and though we have had some of that too, it does actually look like we are getting ready to transition from rainy season to dry season.

Though I love rain, this weather is fantastic right now for doing laudry - which I am doing now! - but also for goint out to the backyard and do some art with my oldest nephew. We carved a pumpkin yesterday - okay, I carved it, and gutted it because he declared that he wouldn't go anywhere near that "yucky thing" we pulled out of the pumpkin - which ended up real nice - if I may say so. For today morning, however, we had to take it out to the backyard and hose it down because it was covered in ants. That didn't happen last Halloween. The pumpkin will now stay outside where any ant attack won't bother us inside the house, and where any pumpkin catching on fire wouldn't bother us either. At least not me. Yes, this pumpkin looks great, nice and plum, but it's a bit too low, so the candle in it soon starts burning the top of it. I still have one other pumpkin for carving, and since that one doesn't have a nice sticking out chunk, I might leave it with an open top (top-less? ^_^) so that it can be lighted up without risking catching on fire.

So, as the freshly hosed pumpkin was out in the nice Decemberish sun drying up, my nephew and I decided to go outside and do some art. So we opened the Box of Art and fished out water colors, trays for mixing colors, brushes and started doing some magic. He was really having fun with the mixing, enjoying how putting together two colors did yield a third one as if by magic. Making orange, purple, brown, pink...it was chromatic alchemy for him. We ripped out two pages from a new sketching pad - my bigger than the one we had been using so far, and after having fun discovering colors, we sat down creating something fun.

I was planning on making a small bag for myself, to replace the small purple Hello Kitty bag I left in Hungary - it's a small, simple tote bag I used for carrying things around like lunch and such - but haven't got to it yet. It's not supposed to be a difficult project - and come on, I've already made once a yoga mat bag! - but haven't started my little tote just yet. I haven't gotten any further with my letters, though I have already balled up several pages as none of my startings really please me. Ah mind! Maybe I should just take a moment in the moonlight to meditate, clear my head out, art up a little, maybe go back to my knitting, and then I'll be ready to pick up on things and roll with them.

Weekends, they can be wonderful!

Car on Diazepam

What a great Saturday this was! Yes, I'm blogging later then usual, and Blogger tells me that's already tomorrow (you know, the issues with moving Blogger from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere), but I can't be bothered by that today. In my plans I was supposed to meet with Dragonfly and then with Carrie, Kate and Lau. Carrie got sick, Kate got a double shift and Lau was held hostage by homework. The meeting with Dragonfly also fell through because her family business became more successful than they expected - ^_^ as it was bound to, because they are all terribly talented people - and so she was caught making more organic, artisanal soap, so she couldn't meet me. Not that I mind, as this way I can place an order for some of the fabulous products she and her sister make, so maybe next week we can meet and then I can take home some fo the fabulous products these talented girls make.

Aside from the meetings with my friends, which didn't happen, and do to which I'm sitting here blogging instead of laughing like crazy and sipping on Applebees' alcohol devoided cocktails, I attended a seminar on Institutional Risk. No, it's not what you might be thinking, it's a topic related to Internal Control, stuff like procedures and how should you do things in order to do them properly and right, what's the proper chain of actions and so on. Well, Institutional Risk and Risk Management is all about risk, and that's a part of my Internal Control framework that I've been lacking for a while. The seminar was sponsored by my Professional Collegium - that thing I can't properly explain in any language that isn't Spanish because I believe there might not be any like it in any other place in the world - and so was held at the headquarters, which are located in San Pedro.

The seminar lasted pretty much the whole day, which was rather convenient because since the girls and I usually meet in San Pedro, I wouldn't have to deal with the Saturday afternoon traffic, just wait for the girls with a drink in my hand, maybe having time ahead to do some windowshopping that may or may not end up in actual shopping. So far so good, except that as it happens Sookie went to the mechanic on Wednesday, for those issues she had at the technical revision two weeks ago. Wednesday I had to go home by bus. Thursday I went to the office and back with bus. Friday I also took the bus, though then again I normally do that on Fridays because of the plate restriction. However I was really, really sad that I didn't have Sookie, and I was missing her terribly, and wished I got her back as soon as possible. One of the things that also got me worried, to word it somehow, was that I knew I would need her a lot today.

I actually found myself praying to God to please let me have Sookie for Saturday. So in the early afternoon, my brother called that Sookie was sort of ready  -or at least ready enough to take her to the test again. However he was on a work trip very far away from the Metropolitan Area, which meant that I had to go for her, and since I don't know where's the mechanic, I had to go with my dad. So I called dad, and we met to go for my car. the mechanic explained to me what was done with my car, and how some temporary measures had to be taken - hopefully enough to get her to pass the technical revision - but that the definitive solutions were in work, as soon as he got the spare parts needed.

One of the adjustments made were due to the gas emisions. What was done was that the ... something of the car was set on a different tempo. It's some weird stuff that regulates the potency of the car. On lower potency the motor seems weaker, slower, but it makes lesser emissions and it saves gas. Man, you have no idea what's like to drive her now. It's like they've put my car on diazepam! It's like she used to be all hype and hands-on type of girl, not afraid of anything, ready to take on any challenge and then laugh and say "that's all you've got? Come on, don't sell yourself short, sweetheart!". She was the type of car that would take anything you would throw at her, and she would chew it and spit in in your face. Now, on diazepam she's... hippie. It's all ease, cool and calm, no pushing, no limits... it's all like a magic trip down a mythic yellow brick road.

In that sense, I realized that she and me are much alike, or more like I'm much like my car. We are always the push-it type, the hard workers even if we start the day with difficulty and much grumbling. We might get offended by lack of care, we might have our issues, but we puch the envelope, make the whole nine and puch for the extra mile. We appreciate pampering, get our things, but then, when we have to fit the norm and be like the others, we need to get on diazepam, and that, my friends, makes us groovie.

I love my Sookie, and today was a fabulous day, but I can't wait to have my girl off her pills.

Rounding Things Up

The Weekend is slowly reaching to an end, and as it is, my next week is already getting all booked up. It's Sunday again, and tomorrow we are back into Monday, and this time around, that could maybe represent a relief. I'll have to work some this weekend - namely today - on some office stuff, but I also have some personal matters to manage. For instance, today, during yoga - at which I was particularly bad today - the opening line for a story I've been thinking off - and finished in my head already - finally popped up. I guess those horrible inverted positions I hate so much are actually good for something. Yeah, not much "blank mind" during meditation. Rather productive, as that one line already produced one page. ^_^ Then again, as it usually is, as my work week got harder, my Muse decided that she also want to join the ranks of labor, and so inspired me to get this story in my head detached from the world inside my skull, and find ancle in paper.

I had rented some movies, none of which were really as good as I expected them, except The Hunger Games, which I've seen already a gozillionth time already. As result, this week FINALLY I've found a fanfic from this fandom. Maybe it's time to slip into the world of fiction again, who knows.

This is the last day of September, and as tomorrow comes, the day wakes up, the night shifts and the sun rises again, we'll step into October, a month of sheer magic, crowned at the end by the fabulous Halloween or Samhain, whatever you wish to call it. Yoga might not be working 100% on me (today), and maybe I'll have to postpone Archery another month because I'll be joining a seminar on Institutional Risks (yes, that kind of stuff gets me giddy), but still, as fall sweeps darker in, colder, chillier, spirituality also awakens, and with it - strangely mingled - inspiration for the Artist in you.

Farewell, good September, month of the Fatherland, and Merry Meet, blessed October, month of the Spirit in all its shades.

Weekend of Rain and Stuff

Weekend, yes! And if you checked my blog three minutes before midnight, Central European Time, then that's all you would have read. Well, that's what you get when you can't fix the schedule of your blog PROPERLY. but I won't rant this time around, I have a new-ish haircut and I'm happy, so I won't rant about Blogger.

The week at work ended up quite interesting, with lots and lots of work to do, which is great, because that means more and more stuff to keep myself occupied, and all of them are of the very kind I love the most: analyzing and trying to figure out what's not being said. It's economics CSI! Money Detective work! and have I told you just how much I enjoy that? Very.

I also had a little bit of "fun day" all by my own, though I didn't go to the movies, but instead I went on checking an old excentricity store I discovered some 30 years ago, which was packed with crystals, jewelry made from it at rather accesible prices, and witchcraft stuff. Needless to say, I was drawn to it like flies to honey. However yesterday I realized that the store has become another Chinese artifact store. Chinese amulets, Chinese traditional clothing, Chinese statues... and the only not-so-evidently-Chinese thing was a shelve in a glass counter filled with potions and magical soaps. long gone were the pendulums, the Tarot Decks and all other strange things I loved to stare at. That was a bummer. Now I don't have any witchy store I know of which I could think of and let my imagination run wild conjuring up the lives of the people stopping by. I guess I could still buy the stuff I always bought there, the jewelry and the crystals, but then again, with the store turned into a "chinería" as we call them here, it lost interest for me.

There are other witchcraft stores around, some of which I visited once with an acquintance of mine who back then was neck deep in black magic (and Dragonfly-cr knows her too...), but those stores seem to me a little bit... creepy. It's like the one I loved to go to was also creepy, but a bit more... The Craft shop like, while these others are more The Skeleton Key shop like. One has witches, the other might have a couple of zombies tucked in the closet. And yes, I'm curious, but I honestly prefer places more hippie-vibe like, instead of the "this is how you get rid of the lover your husband is keeping". Who knows, maybe it's the Christian in me saying "Yes, God is in everything, but that's no reason for you to be in everything too, so you get the fuck out of there and just run, run until you run into a cross". I'm a chicken, sometimes. (However, no matter how much some stores scare me, I fully support every religion in the world, even if initially they sound weird, like Jedism and Matrixism.)

After my encounter with China-invaded-Pagan store, I went on around the center of the Capital City - which has changed since I was last around - and went to an old cafe-bar I used o love. There I ordered my cocktail of the week: vodka and Red Bull. It was good, it was nice, it was sweet, and I hope the next time I order it they don't forget the vodka out of it. It was sheer joy to be there, alone, going through some work, while the world buzzed around me. It was also quite fascinating to witness how the girls on the table next to mine, who had been there longer than me, received a rather poor service, while I was attended to perfection. As a matter of fact, they not only complained that they had to wait 30 minutes for their cocktails while mine arrived in 10 minutes, BUT that I've got an order of fried green bananas (patacones), while they had also ordered the same and after 20 minutes were told there were none and had to order something else. By the way, yes, they were right in complaining for not getting the patacones, because they were HEAVENLY!

Today I woke up and was 2 kg heavier. Doesn't matter, the patacones worth it. Took mom to the University - I love driving her to work ^_^ - then worked a little bit on the Scrapbook project I started doing for her, but that's nowhere near to being finished, AND then decided to go do some errands. I was SUPPOSED to take Hyperion to the vet, but the cunning cat took his leave when he suspected that a caged trip was looming dangerously over his head. So instead I went and had other errands done, such as preparing some music CDs for a friend of mine. She had shared with me some of her favorite Jewish or pop-Jewish music, and I told her that, well, all I could share with her was Pagan music, and she said she would be interested, so I prepared her a small compilation. I don't have enough Yoga music to compile a CD for her, nor enough Arabic, and then Pagan music is in English (what I have) and it's quite interesting and not everybody knows about it, so there. :-) This is an errand for me, because I don't have a proper CD burner here at home, so errand it is.

Then I went to ask about a small presentation about turning what's negative into positive, but in the end I didn't attend it. Yeah, the reason being that I went to my hairdresser, and since she's moving from her current location to another shop, several of her customers were there waiting for her. I needed my cut NOW, since this is a Full Moon day (today, actually), and I'd love my hair to get a bit thicker (I'm working on getting rid of my layered style and have a fuller mane), and folklore or not, I wanted my hair done now.

I decided also to change my hairstyle. Still long, but something different, as the European style just wasn't cooperating with me anymore. So after talking it over with my hairdresser, we decided to go for a full mane in the back, work on recovering full lenght with no layer, but do a layering up around my face, much like a 90's style. Then as I was getting out of the shop it started to rain and my hair went up in big curls, as it usually does, so I don't know if it does look like what we wanted from it. If not, in 6 week, when I go again, but this time to the new shop, we will have the frayed layers removed and a long side bang cut in it's place.

Now, I gara go, I'm late for yet another day of fun, meeting with Kate and Carrie with whom it's all good cocktails (except that I'm driving) and loads of White Collar and gaping about other similar eye candy and goodies.

Sunday Without Yoga

Sunday yoga is a thing of wow. The day start a little before 8 am, because at 8 am my lovely boyfriend and I meet over the Skype, then yoga, then back home to wash my hair and shower down and then goes on the rest of the day with whatever that has been planned. Well, not today, since personal nature got in the way of my plans. Man, where's my menopausia, my grey hair and my retirement staying? I want them all now! Yes, I was born old.

So, instead of stretching and twisting and flowing through asanas, I fell back in bed after talking with my boyfriend, with an aching waist, and went on watching TV and knitting until my avocado-mix colored yarn run out - which happened quite fast. Now I'm doing laundry - also part of my Sunday program - and  waiting for lunch to be ready, when I'll FINALLY have acorn with margarine. Gara love the cooked acorn coated richly with slowly melting margarine that threatens to run down your elbows. Ah, that's the Indian (Native ... Native-what are our indians?) Spirit in me.

My friend Al and I held circle yesterday to celebrate the Autumn Equinox, and this time around it came out rather well, though it was strange to hold this ceéebration while the rest of her family - save her daughter - where coming and going. There are a couple of rought patches going on there, maybe in all the wrong places, who knows, but it got me thinking time and again about the meaning of this celebration for her, and how the rest of her family were taking this circling thing. The languages to talk to God can also become the languages in which men choose to talk to their peers or themselves. I can only hope that a path of acceptance, personal choice, and respect for nature brings home the message these hearts need to be soothed and healed.

It's Sunday and many stores are closed, but I keep thinking about walking to the downtown (though rain looms dangerously close to Earth) to fetch myself more avocado-mix yarn, maybe getting a few new movies from the blockbuster for later. Well, who knows? Maybe I'll get myself The Hunger Games again. :-)

I thought about cheating, and go back to an earlier post were I went on rambling and then at the end I remembered what was the topic I wanted to develop, but then decided to leave it for later. I just couldn't find it, nor I was interested in going step by step finding the elusive topic. So this leaves us with another rambling post. But aren't those some of the best ones?

Sunday finally came, and with it the knowledge that tomorrow is Monday and I'll have to wake up early and go to work. My day planner is also getting filled up with a lot of programs, both work related and others related to things I like to do. I went over my List of 13 and prepared the fifth one. Goodness Gracious! I'm already making my fifth list! Isn't that something? For this list I'm giving a second chance to stuff I didn't complete on the fourth list, others are getting striken out (like going to the movies, since you know already fairly well what I think of these crappy movies) and changed for others, such as "Having at least one Fun day a week". This can be applied to movies, cultural activities, time spent with friends and so on.

One thing I added to this list was to make myself a hat. ^_^ Gara get myself some dark yarn in black or brown, dark green or blue or something like that and try and make myself a cloche hat. I totally love cloche hats! The idea came after I decided to make a badge holder necklace for myself, based on the idea I've seen in Finnair. I've already showed it to some of my friends and have been considering making some for selling. Little plans that always come handy in times of crisis. Yes, I guess Roo's suggestion finally caught up with me. We shall see how it goes.

Lightning Shaked Saturday

From sunny to clouded and lightning linen, today looks a lot like a day with bipolar issues. And dear Hyne, what the hell happened to my weekend?? I remember still being in Hungary and spending quiet little weekends - maybe even wishing for weekdays so I could see my beloved Korean series - but now! Now I spend weekdays hoping for weekends - just like any regular, normal, decent and self-respecting employee does - and when the weekend comes I have a week's worth of plans and programs and no idea how to have them all done! Yes, planning, planning, all can be solved with proper planning and organizing, but sometimes an Ubiquity Pill would help a lot. At days like this I wish I were already retired.

Today's plans included going to the seamtress to get three pairs of slacks fixed, because somehow I have lost... well, if not weight, I sure have slid off my frame a couple of sizes. One of the slacks I took for fixing had already been fixed, which made the woman widen her eyes in amazement. I just smiled, but when I saw how much had to be taken off the slack to fit me I couldn't believe it. It's at least two inches from the waist!

Then I also checked a local bead store to get some supplies for my next project, and once again realized that they sell garbage. I needed some hooks, but the hooks they sold were so badly planned that they don't open. Don't get me wrong, they do move, only both parts of the hook never slide far enough to fit anything between them. From there I roamed here and there, went to the Post Office, then visited my DVD rental -where there was nothing, as usual - and then home, just in time to avoid the 2 minute pouring, which was preceded by lightnings like you have never seen before. It was like energy trees planted on the sky were shooting their powerful white roots from above into the Earth. It was scary.

Further plans include meeting with my fellow Heredian Tweeters at 15h for a coffee, sharing news and tweeting live, under the #tuiterosheredianos hashtag, and then meet with Carrie and Kate at 17h. Hopefully I can get them to meet at a different location since I need to fix a couple of things for next Thursday, when my friend Alix will be celebrating her birthday, for which I'd like to get her an appointment for a mini spa treatment. If I can't get Carrie and Kate to meet me at the new place I'll have to arrive at our meeting later, but in any case I need to meet them! Not only because I already miss them, but because Carrie has White Collar Eps for me, and I really, really need those!

Still have lots of things to fix and arrange, but I'll manage the rest of the load later, for now, I'll see how can I handle these.

Blessed weekend for all!

Restful Weekend

The weekend is slowly reaching an end. It's a weekend with a beautiful Full Moon, a particular one to it - a Blue Moon. (The Blue Moon is basically the second full moon withing a month, and believe it or not, this isn't a very common happening.) I was expecting to meet with some friends but we didn't because one of them got sick. Weather, with the impending rains that only showered lightly, kind of crossed my plans to go to the movies.

Today, however, my friend Lau and I went to yoga - as usual - and had a wonderful time at it. It got me also thinking that I haven't done any private meditation this week, and that could be awesome. I've got a CD with guided meditations last week at the yoga fair, so maybe, as I'm staying home today, waiting for my hair to dry without using a hair dryer (I'm treating my hair with organic products made from coconut and olive oil, while avoiding all sorts of tools that might burn my hair, such as the hairdryer or even the straightener), and preparing to finish a letter while the first letter I've received here - since I arrived - is already waiting for me. Lau also showed me her scrapbook, where she has incorporated the pictures of her latest trip to the States, and it made me think of the scrapbook I started preparing for my Mom, which I've never finished, and which I'd like to work on now. I'm just feeling quite creative, or maybe I shall say that I'm feeling simply inspired, bursting with the desire to do thing, wonderful, pretty things.

Yoga, meditation, penpals and movies, scrapbook, stories and a bit of music... isn't this weekend just wonderful?

Feeling Happy!!!

Goodness Gracious! I'm feeling so incredibly, absolutely and completely Happy! Sure, it could be the effect of my delicious bagel-breakfast, which this time around was poppy (though there weren't many poppy seeds on the bagel), or the effect of the Light Coke that I mistakenly got, since I don't drink light coke, I only drink regular coke. Now, life would be just perfect if I could go out into the beautiful, warm, sunny patch of street some yards away from the office building, and sit on a concrete half-wall with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Sadly, I can't smoke (stupid asthma not going away) and I forgot to make coffee. But still, I'm about to go out and fetch myself some lunch (I was supposed to go lunch with my twitter friends, but all of them balked out in the last minute), and I'll enjoy that wonderful warmth, walk in the sun and be simply happy!

I've been meeting with friends, getting stuff fixed - meaning restoring things to the state they were in prior to me going to Hungary in February - and now I'm looking forward to a weekend full of more programs with friends and exciting things to do.

Sometimes life is plain AWESOME!!