I took another trip up the mountains this past week to see my Mum and Brother Fred. It definitely does the soul a world of good to get away.
Unfortunately it also the triggers the nomad in me to be in about 20 others places, most requiring my dusty passport, last used in February.
Inhale.
Exhale.
We’ll get there.
Moving on …
I am working a reduced schedule for the month of August, which is very French, n’est-ce pas?, for this Irish gal. It’s to be a casual couple of weeks. It’s called ‘holiday’ in this biz. I’m happy to indulge my need to sleep in, but I also plan to continue designing on the side.
One of the issues (so to speak) with working remote is that you tend to take less time off. Even going back and forth to England, I only use “work leave” during my actual travel days. In between those two bookends, I am making my deadlines. I like it this way.
I counted it up. In the last 12 months, I’ve had a week off for Christmas. 2 days for Thanksgiving. 6 days for travel. And no complaints. I like to work. I’m honoured to be able to do what I do. And what’s lovelier, is that I am over the moon when I am doing it.
FYI: This is where the geek in me comes in. I can’t help it. And I’m only half sorry 🙂
Speaking of …
Tuesday I introduced a pandemic tracker tool, which pair restrictions with areas where we work, educating those travelling to those locations about any issues, and charting its impact on operations. The online forum was to a virtual audience of 194 professional peers and leaders. It took me 15 days to design and deploy. 8 days to prep for Tuesday and about 22 minutes to present.
The first 5 minutes were scripted, by me, and the rest I improv’d with slides. I went over my allotted time by 1 minute and 44 seconds. Whoops.
It’s been some time since I’ve addressed an audience of that size. My largest was at a convention for 250 people. It was me on a stage in a blue company shirt and black trousers, mic’d, and my work partner Rachel manning the background images from the booth.
That day was 4 hours of of training with questions in between. We did a bang up job. I remember we were well received.
This was a little easier. Questions came afterwards not during. I definitely was in the zone. When I ended, it felt like a solid delivery. And the comments that followed seemed to agree.
Afterwards, I went on an hour long drive around the mountain town to clear my head and admire houses that looked out over the majestic rolling hills of the Blue Ridge. It was sweltering hot up there, but you wouldn’t know by the blue blue (written twice) sky and millions of green forest tree leaves.
Now I am back at the poor wee cottage, having arrived yesterday just before the evening monsoons.
I’ve a few errands to get out of the way today, most having to do with stocking a rather empty refrigerator.
Other than that, the plan is to be with my hair up, in shorts and a tank top … whilst periodically checking on the The Case of the Left Handed Lady (the second book from the young adult Enola Holmes Mystery series):
As I run through a few Duolingo lessons for good measure.
Happy Friday.