It’s early. It’s so early.

This morning I got to work at 7:30am. Which is actually not as early as you’d think, based on the number of people I work with who are there at 7:30. Is that a thing we do here? Because I didn’t know it was I thing, I squeak in at quarter to 9 and call it good.

Anyway since I was here so early I thought I’d dust off the old blog. I ALSO got sidetracked by the fact that the Wondrous Wellington Advent Calendar is up and running again. Yes! I love that thing!

Turns out our GM has found advent calendars for work too. I’m not going to admit to being motivated by the same tactics that would work on a 5 year old… but the star chart was a surprising success. I can only guess that the promise of being one of the three people every day to get bad Christmas chocolate will drive productivity through the roof.

Big on the agenda today is making the BIG APPOINTMENT for neutering Archer. He’s a year and a half now, so I think all his growing should be pretty-much done.. SO it’s time!  (Also he totally tried to knock up a friends dog last weekend. It was horrifying.)

Melbourne is pretty great, I’ve heard.

So I’m in Melbourne right now, and its pretty crazy! It’s been party, party, party – and I only got here 7 or 8 hours ago (its hard to know, on account of all the partying.)

Naturally the first thing I did was shots. Of cough and cold syrup.

Then came a marathon shopping trip! Woo! So glam! I lurched around like a mouth breathing zombie for three hours while I waited for my hotel to be ready. I might have brought some stuff… To be honest I’m not sure – such a whirlwind!

When I ran out of shops to blow my nose in, I crawled back to the hotel lobby and popped pills. To manage mucus. Because that’s a thing that’s happening right now.

So you know, since then I’ve been exploring the hotel room. Mostly the bathtub, and the bed. I watched a movie, read the whole ‘hotel welcome’ pack cover to cover, browsed the mini bar.

I also dyed my hair in the hotel bathroom, because as well as being the year of the dog, this is also apparently the year of behaving recklessly with hotel bonds.

Is anyone else having paranoid flashbacks to the incident with the crimson rush carpet? Ack. Best idea ever.

And now I’m planning to wipe down the bathroom for about an hour, followed by an inspection of the pure white hotel towels.

Bugger.

Crap.

My Fitbit HR is somewhere in the house. Somewhere that isn’t my wrist. I’ve just spent the last hour digging through my couches, bedding, and bathroom bins, and I can’t find it.

Related: I apparently need to vacuum my couch cushions in a very bad way. Like immediately. There might be sentient things growing in there.

The frustrating thing is I know it is in the house, because it sync’d with my phone 3 minutes ago.

It’s annoying the crap out of me, because I managed to squeeze a lot of walking into my day today. And I meditated on the train this morning, so probably I would have had at least 10 waking minutes where my heart rate was below 75 BPM. Which is a thing I apparently care about now.

My phone all tells me that Fitbit stopped picking up heartbeat and steps at about 6am on Monday. Since then Fitbits absence has been reminding me that Fitbit reccomends I maintain a resting heartbeat of at least 50 beats per minute assuming I’m a super athlete. Fitbit doubts I am a super athlete and believes a relaxed 65-70 beats per minute might be more achievable. With my current lack of pulse Fitbit is beginning to doubt I’m even trying.

Fitbit would also like me to know that it’s looking very unlikely I’ll meet my minimum weekly step goal of 70,000 steps at this rate. Fitbit isn’t judging me, its just feeling a little disappointed I don’t appear to be taking the goals we set together as seriously as Fitbit is.

As annoying as this is, it is an excellent opportunity to rearrange my house for the tenth time since I moved in, in the interests of finding my lost watch and healthy lifestyle guilt monitor. (Deciding to move every piece of furniture I own at 8:30 at night on a whim is only one of the many fascinating reasons I live alone.)

Shambles

I have either gained weight in my stomach or lost it off my ass this morning because my pants will not stay up today. Or both… Maybe the fat just relocated overnight.

I have PCOS, that’s been known to happen before.*

Anyway today I spent my time doing an attractive tug and wiggle every time I stood up from my desk.

I also spent my day recovering my professional confidence from yesterday’s shit-show. I’ve been in my shiny new Project Manager for maybe three months now, and on a couple of my projects shit is getting real.

I was doing pretty OK up until yesterday, because even though I’m new I subscribe to the fake it till you make it theory. I fake it like a badass.

I thought I was doing OK till yesterday, then I was told about one comment about one of the projects being a shambles, and all of a sudden I’m all: “shit they’re right! I can’t do this! I have six projects on my books, and I’m going to tank them all!”

I was super disappointed because I’ve been a project coordinator for years, and over the last two years I made these massive leaps in what I was doing professionally. I was at the point where I could look someone in the face and tell them I was brilliant at my role in a project setting, and they needed me because I was the best at what I did. No fake confidence required. Proven, tested, validated, with the reviews from customers to back it up.

I guess I forgot for a moment that I’m not there yet as a PM.

Now I’m back at the scary end of the totem pole. I’m not the best at what I do anymore because I’m new, and I have a hell of a lot to learn.

If nothing else the scary end of the totem pole is the end that you grow at. It’s the end with the challenges, and the end with the stuff that keeps you engaged in your career. And if you keep pushing through, then you’ll hit the top again eventually.

… That is if your ill fitting pants don’t end up losing the fight against gravity somewhere embarrassingly public first.

This morning after I tugged and wiggled my responsible adult communicator pants back into place I managed to clear up what the comment was about and took the first steps to fixing it. It wasn’t directed at me as a PM, so much as an aspect of the project I hadn’t thought about in enough detail.

Picture me walking through the office with victory fists.

#stillnotfired

*Said no qualified medical professional ever.

The Year of the Dog. Mine, specifically.

Why hello from sunny 2015.

I say sunny, but really it’s the middle of winter. That hasn’t stopped the last few weekends from being absolutely stunning though! I judge my week in weekends, because in winter I leave when it’s dark. I spend all day in an office. I arrive home in the dark. If there happens to be gale force winds and severe weather warnings for rainfall in amoung that, well so long as it doesn’t stop then train from getting me home, we’re all good!

With all this sunshine I’ve been getting all radical with fitness lately – if you think walking is radical. No? Walking with hills? No? Baby mountain tramping? Not radical? Oh well. That’s what I’ve been doing.

Mostly it’s because of this moose:

He’s a year old now, and a handsome teenage rebel! He’s also got the energy level of a bunny on crack. We’re thankfully past the puppy hell months (3-5 where I got little sleep and my house smelt like dog pee) and I’m finding ways to manage the whole work/life balance, if by life you mean the life-sized grand canyon holes my dog was digging along my fence-line out of boredom while I’m at work.

He’s pretty but also industrious, given the work ethic he put into play with project: Escape the Property.

So yeah, Archer and I walk. We walk a lot. Recently we climbed the Gentle Annie out at Mt Holdsworth… Gentle is a bit of an overstatement. We did the Rimutaka Rail Trail with a pack of dogs in the meetup Walkies group in Wellington. I did the Putangirua Pinnacles with him last Saturday with a couple from the newly set up meetup Walk the Dog Wairarapa group.

The meetup groups are brilliant! Highly recommend!

So with it being winter I was a little worried about hitting depression again (that’s always my winter fear!) but I think I’m ok this year. I think being out exploring the great outdoors makes me feel good and recharged and connected to the world. The wilder and more remote the better, and I’m certainly getting that with Archer.

So now with the terrible puppy-hood woes over (fingers and toes crossed, and lick a bunny foot to be REALLY sure.) I might MAYBE be ready to think about a companion for my energy bundle dog… MAYBE. I’m not sure yet. One dog is work with training, vet bills, jealousy about having to share my dog with a neighbor during the day, and feeling guilty about late nights… but two. Hmm.