That’s what I am trying to achieve today, keeping myself distracted from the next few days. Of course, it is not really working so I just fired up Elvis Presley’s Christmas album and I am getting ready to let the emotions out. Or as someone recently said “emotional incontinence” which has a certain truth to it.

Let’s be honest, I really don’t like this time of year. There are number of dates during this time of the year that remind me anew of how many people are missing from my life. This year, I can add Raven and Moortje to that list. So, what am I doing? Poking the dragon, so to speak. I know I will feel better if I let some of this emotion out. So far, it is stuck somewhere around my chest and doesn’t want to come up higher.

This afternoon I still need to get food for the pets, flowers for the graves and a few basic groceries for the next few days since things will be closed here for 1st and 2nd Christmas day. I also need to take out the trash, the recycling to the 3 different drop off points and the boys to the park. Tonight we’ll go to the church in Marum for the Christmas Eve service. I am going to try to keep the tears down to 50% of the service…

Good thing I am getting some of them out now.

My aunt called last night since we won’t see each other on 1st Christmas Day. GG’s family got their names on the schedule first so that’s where we will be tomorrow. I am dreading it. Nothing to do with them at all, it is all me. I don’t want to be around anyone’s happy family at this time of the year. The boys are also invited so I will have my service animals handy. Also, having to take the dogs out to pee is a handy and polite way to get breaks to tell myself to “Pull yourself together” in my best English accent.

It was really strange not to spend lots of time on picking out the perfect gift for Raven and getting it in the mail so it would get to him ontime. It will be even stranger not to talk to him via phone during the next few days.

I’m going to struggle for the next few days, until the family is here — which will then distract me into Big Sister mode.

I love you all, thank you for being part of my life. I’m wishing you the celebration that fits you best this time of the year — xoxoxoxox, C

Oops… where does time go? Let’s see, here we are on another Tuesday morning, waiting for the phone to ring from a particular HR type. Actually, I am not really waiting that impatiently. I have pushed the whole process slightly to the side. If they come around to wanting rounds 7 and 8, I’m going to ask them nicely what information are they looking for? Because it might very well be that I don’t have what they are looking for or that I do. I feel like I could save everyone’s time with this question 😉

Last night, a coworker called me at 1830 and left me a voicemail telling me that I could reach him up until 2230. I was like “WTF?” It’s not like it was about anything urgent either, he wanted to discuss the meeting we had yesterday morning with the customer. I did not call back. I have worked hard to set boundaries for myself regarding my work-life balance and I have to be very careful about not backsliding! This past Saturday, another coworker sent me a message wanting to talk about another customer. The meeting is scheduled for 26 January 2017 and he wanted to talk on Saturday morning about it. Umm, NO. In case you are wondering, both of these coworkers are Dutch and not in my immediate team. One of them I have never even met prior to the email exchange.

I also work odd hours. Sometimes it is 2100 and I am working on something. However, I am very careful to only expect my coworkers to respond during normal work hours. And I certainly don’t call them at night. Let’s face it, none of us are brain surgeons or first responders – there’s nothing we do that is that urgent or that needs a night time response.

Speaking of odd hours, there’s 11 days left to 2016. I’m not quite finished with my work for this year yet. I am taking the first week of the year off since the whole gang will be here. I am looking forward to that, even if it means that I might need to find some additional chairs somewhere 😉

It seems that I will indeed have to be patient a little longer. I didn’t hear anything on Friday. You can imagine how my brain was working over the weekend! Yesterday afternoon, just before my weekly call with my mentee, they called. It seems that there will be another two interviews. Number 5 is tonight and number 6 will be on Thursday evening.

I am not nervous, per se. I need to find my enthusiasm and energy by later today since the interview is with the US. I’ll find it, probably some time after I go to the dentist at lunch.

On the other hand, there are now conversations at work regarding other roles. For the moment, it is just discussion about what might be created in the future. I’m not putting too much stock in it because I know that I need a change now, not the possibility of a change in 6 months.

I’m waiting this morning for the plumber to call me back. In a fit of determination and exasperation with the washer flooding the floor, I attempted some self repairs. Let’s say those didn’t work out so well 😉 You have a new found appreciation for how much water washers use, even on the eco cycle when it’s on your floor!

Not just the song although I just fired up the Spotify playlist “This is: Guns ‘N’ Roses”. It seems like a good music to write by. I should also mention that I scored early purchase tickets to their show this summer. As soon as I saw the presale notice, I knew that I had to have those tickets. My best friend in 9th and 10th grade, Tricia, and I were obsessed with GNR. We used to address letters to each other using our GNR nicknames. I still have them. It took a while to teach the postal carrier to deliver the letters, no matter how ridiculous the name seemed on the envelope. I seem to recall that between the summer of 9th and 10th grade, we even wrote letters to the band. Lots of them. Of course, now you would just Twitter or something but back then it was all about trying to create the perfect fan letter.

I am titling this one Patience because I am trying really hard to have some. After my interviews last week, I managed to hold out until yesterday afternoon before asking if they had some feedback for me. A few hours later I got the response that they would be discussing my interviews Thursday with the whole group and get back to me on Friday. Ugh. Still two whole days away…

Tomorrow morning, it’s time for my weekly date with Little C. This is treatment number 10 so she’s well over the halfway mark. We’ve generated some fame, which can be a little awkward. Today someone came up to me in the office and starting talking a mile a minute to me about Little C and would I mind bringing her a gift? I was like “Sure”. The whole time I was trying to see her badge so I would know who she was. Here’s the worst part, I know I have spoken to her before and more than once. I just couldn’t remember her name for the life of me. So tomorrow Little C will have guess who the gift giver was from the description I can give. Too bad I am not artistic, I could draw a sketch of the suspect er, I mean giver. 😉

I interviewed a potential replacement for me this afternoon. That was interesting… those conversations are always a little awkward because I want to answer their questions so they have a good idea if this will be a fit for them. I try to be overly objective which then makes me wonder later if I was not telling the truth. It is a strange thought pattern. I thought he was very interesting, very different energy than I have, much quieter. 😉 Anyway, we’ll see if he wants to go further with the process.

Interesting times!

It is official, it’s Meredith’s birthday. I cannot disclose her age, her height, or other identifying characteristics so I will simply say it is a birthday somewhere between 1-100 😉 If you guess the right number, you will win an unlimited order of fried cheese, since that is her favorite snack. This is proof that she definitely belongs in this family, since we are all variants of cheese addicts.

I am really excited because in 27 days, Meredith (and Rupert) will be landing at Schiphol. In two weeks, I will start practicing the arrival greeting process 😉 It is very convenient that our office building is at Schiphol.

I am trying to think of the right words to convey what Meredith means to me. Let me make it easy on myself and use simple sentences… I am really grateful that she is part of our family and my life. Meredith is our linchpin. We all strive to behave better around her than we do with each other, she inspires us to be better versions of ourselves. Or at the very least to show up using our party manners 😉

Meredith reminds us to be in the moment. She’s always present when she is with you, not distracted or planning for the next day. That’s a quality that my mom had and all of her kids didn’t. 😉

Meredith shows us that you don’t have to be bossy, loud and full of big opinions to make your point. I’ve learned from her how to use the power of listening  and the secret craft of stillness 😉

I guess it is easiest said like this “Thank you, Meredith, for loving us and being part of our family”. And as for your birthday and year to come, I’m going to wish you even more chances to touch people’s lives, good memories to make and places to see and a birthday cake made entirely of fried cheese. Big hugs today and even more when I can squeeze you on the 29th!

I realize that Weebles might not be well known so looking on the internet this morning, I see that someone else has created the perfect image for this post. No idea who Julie King is but thanks all the same 🙂

I am a little wobbly this morning. It is not due to a caffeine shortage but rather that it is Thanksgiving in the US. I figure if I want to be able to do anything with the rest of my day, and I have a busy one, then I should purge myself on digital paper and then get it moving. So, welcome to my morning “Pull yourself together” moment.

Ugh, today is a hard one. I have been feeling a little out of my skin over the past week, more prickly and easier to tear up. I didn’t quite figure out why until yesterday afternoon when I was having coffee with Little C. Then when I was telling a story about my mom, it suddenly all landed.

I know you don’t need a national holiday to miss someone or to celebrate it with family. This year, I am missing Raven as well. What are the chances of finding another partner in crime who liked to eat pumpkin pie for breakfast?

Last night, before I went to sleep, I talked to my mom and made a list of all of the ways my life had changed and what I wished she had been able to see. Things that I was really grateful for and had learned from.

I think that this post is really going nowhere today. I’m going to go to work and see if that doesn’t help. In the meantime, if you are celebrating today, Happy Thanksgiving 🙂

Tonight was the second round interview, with the US via Skype. I passed and am on to the third with the local team. I am pretty excited. I wasn’t nervous today, probably due to the lavender oil under my nose, and also because I decided to treat this as just a conversation. It worked, it went really well.

Of course, yesterday I outed myself at work that I had a second round interview and if anyone had suggestions from their network as to potential replacements, please let me and my manager know… that created a few awkward moments in the meetings. It needs to be done though. It didn’t feel 100% great. However, part of being open to something new means that you need to make sure everything is taken care of that you can. I remember when I first started thinking of moving here, I started asking people six months in advance if they would be interested in my job. I wanted to be sure that my customers were taken care of.

I don’t think it will be a six month window this time. And neither does big C, my manager. First thing this morning, she sent me the job description that will post for my review and input. That felt kind of awkward. 😉

GG and I went to see Anneke van Giersbergen again last night. She had gotten me the tickets for my birthday. It was awesome. While we were at dinner and talking about all the career opportunities, I said to her “I just want to be cool”. It sounds funny, doesn’t it? Coming from a 43 year old woman… I don’t mean hip, I mean I just want to be myself in all 1000 variations and be able to do my best work. To me, that’s cool. I want to love what I do and who I do it with. And I want to be learning. So when the interview question came up tonight about my familiarity with the Linux command line, I answered – I would need to learn it and would look forward to doing so!

In the meantime, I have been researching all the potential visa questions, since I am here on a 5 year visa. One big difference between the Dutch and the US visa system is that with the type of visa I have, my partner would have automatically had work clearance as well. I think this is a significant difference because I am pretty sure that in the US, it doesn’t work that way. And if it did before, that will probably change under the new administration! Interesting really, how systems differ between social values.

I have two years left on mine and then I will need an extension, which is not automatic, especially not if I change employment. I’m willing to take the risk though.

It is Saturday morning, just before 10AM. Lientje has returned from her breakfast and the boys are still under the covers, making elephant like noises. As for me, I am drinking coffee and mentally organizing myself. However, first, I am appreciating that this morning I woke up on my own speed, instead of to the sound of the contractors next door – who during the week tend to arrive at 0630 and have no problem using all their outdoor voices and tools.

Knowing that this will be going on until March doesn’t make me like my new neighbors very much. The entire house was gutted and then they are also building out. Since the houses here are attached to each other and share common walls, you can imagine that I am far more involved in their renovations than I want to be. The neighbors themselves aren’t here, they live in the peace and quiet of Amstelveen. They put a note through our mail slots telling us the timeline and that they hoped we were not inconvenienced. But without any contact information so it is a rather passive aggressive way of not saying anything at all.

The houses here are old and there’s the Dutch habit of when you move you take everything with you, even the floor. You can imagine then that there are lots of renovation projects. I can’t quite understand it because I think it is rather wasteful. Renovating every time you move. When I move from this house, you can rest assured I am leaving the floor behind. Along with the appliances and the kitchen. 😉

Thursday morning, little C and I had our weekly date. I was sporting a mild hangover and so I went to the hospital wearing my yoga pants and my Cure t-shirt. Luckily, in a hospital people are wearing all manners of different clothing, so no one really looks twice except to wonder if my ankles aren’t cold (they are not full length yoga pants). This time we were relatively calm, no dancing with the IV poles. They give her a new medicine now which makes her really tired. We think that’s not the real goal, but rather to keep us in a state of good behavior…

We had a really interesting discussion, even if not accompanied by pole dancing. This time, we talked about introvert behavior, parents and children, cultural practices and the nuances of coffee service. I also needed to share some news with little C. Thursday afternoon, I had my first interview with another company. I needed her common sense input.

I passed the first round and will have the second round Tuesday evening. With next week being Thanksgiving in the US, I think they were in a hurry to get it scheduled. At the moment I am not nervous, I am trying not to get too excited. Culturally, they are very different and a great deal smaller.

At the same time, emotionally, I am having a little trouble with the fact that I am doing this. I think this is normal. I love my manager, like I mean, I love her. And I love the company I work for, I just don’t love the local version of it. I know that one of the things that bothers me most is the fixed culture and I know that I am one of the exceptions to it, which is partly why I have some difficulty. I know that by leaving, the monoculture will have gotten one person stronger. I don’t want to leave my fellow exceptions to the rule, knowing that it makes it harder for them. However, I also don’t want to wait another 7 years for the monoculture to shift significantly.

In my head, I have already made the decision to go. In my heart, that’s the catch. From the analytical perspective, I know all the reasons why I am looking and what I am looking for. The heart says “Don’t let them push you out. You can outlast them, just keep going. We have been through things that required our endurance before.” This is true, before I would keep going, no matter what. The difference now is that I’ve learned that endurance is not always what it is cracked up to be. There have been things I have held onto and kept doing that I should have been smarter about earlier.

I have decided to redirect my endurance. I do like that fact about myself, that it is a character trait that I have. I am redirecting my endurance to making sure that I am always doing things with and for purpose. In this case, finding a company that I can have more impact in because culturally it is open to that. If it is not this company that I am now interviewing with, then it will be another.

Last night, Rupert called me with some exciting news. He and Meredith are coming at the end of December for 10 days! I am so excited I want to leave for Schiphol now and start waiting for them. I won’t though, I will wait until December at least starts 😉 I can’t wait to see them. I am trying to get Cedric and Dylan here as well but as with all family things, that remains an effort. However, I am going to email them now as a reminder.

We were supposed to go to Prague for Thanksgiving weekend. However, GG has a super amazing life changing interview on Cyber Monday so we’ll be staying in the low lands. I figure Prague will still be there in the spring 🙂 That means that I have only visited two new countries this year. I am going to have to up my game in 2017.

I’ve been typing for an hour and I think I have my head in order for the rest of the day. It is time to officially wake the boys up and get to the park before it starts raining again. Here’s hoping that your weekend is a good one 🙂

Today I had a mini meltdown at my banjo lesson. I was struggling so much with “Shady Grove” that I actually started crying because I couldn’t get the pull-off right in the second bar. ARGH. No matter what I kept doing, it wasn’t happening right – the tone was off, the tempo was too slow, it messed up the next notes, you name it. The worst part was that each time I was raising my anxiety level and getting further and further away from ever being successful.

Then Paul said we should just move to another bar and I wouldn’t. I was determined to get this damn thing down. Which only made it even less likely to be successful. That stubborn repeat the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result was not a side of me that Paul had seen before. He was surprised that I could so easily get wound up and trapped in this head banging ritual. HAHAHAHA, if he only knew how familiar that is for me.

After finally switching to another bar, I realized exactly what my problem was. I couldn’t solve the problem and I didn’t know another way to do it, since playing music is not really a strength I have. This why I kept repeating the same technique over and over again, with the same result, because I didn’t trust myself that there must be another way to do it, I just needed to take a risk and try something different. Hello, Introspection… where have you been?

So, today’s lesson was that even with something as small as a banjo technique, if I don’t know the subject well, I don’t let myself take the risk to try another way – I get trapped in the idea that I don’t know! Well, shit and shinola, now that I know that, I will be doing some conscious work on taking the risks and trusting myself. It ties into the anxiety that I usually have about whether or not my level of work is high quality enough – do I really know everything about the subject, etc? I think the latest catch phrase for it is imposter syndrome. Whatever it is called, I know I’ve got a case of it.

It’s like when I have to present somewhere. I am always worried that I do not know enough, that there must be some detail that I have overlooked. Have I prepared enough? Which secret sources of information have I forgotten to absorb? Will I be articulate enough, in either language? Those kinds of things. To the point that I usually make myself slightly nauseous and have a couple of dry heaves to get it out of my system on the way there.

Inevitably, I do well with my presentations. The content is usually too much, way more than they wanted and no one fell asleep or walked out. If anything, they have over estimated their knowledge and I have underestimated mine. Silly really. We’re all simply people and exchanging ideas and knowledge. Last week I left a presentation with an enormous bouquet of flowers as a thank you. I am wondering at what point will I stop having the dry heaves and worrying that I don’t know enough? Will I ever get there?

I have an idea from where it comes from. When I was growing up, my parents would always ask if I had really done my best? On my report cards, there would usually be a comment or two that I wasn’t quite living up to my potential. If I came home with a certain grade, the question was always a form of what could you have done to make it higher? I know that comes from having parents who placed a high value on the importance of education. That part I value because I like being a nerd. Where it left some dents is that I always wonder if I really did my best? I’m also really tough on myself in terms of what I think is my best. I think my best is something that I have never yet reached. Inspiring on one hand, frustrating on another.

This afternoon, I had booth bunny duty at a developer conference. It was fine because no one was comfortable approaching me directly, they all made their way to my male colleague. Then they would be rerouted because he’s in marketing and technical questions are not his thing 😉 I have to be back there tomorrow…

I picked Astrid up today, she had her service for the winter and got detailed. Such a beautiful car… Robert asked me again if I wanted to sell. Nope, not going to do it. Of course, since she had her service, the radio won’t work without the code. It took 116 minutes to get from Haarlem back to the garage here due to rain and traffic, with no radio sadly. It is about 10 miles from door to door. Uh huh… Astrid says she wants a helicopter add-on kit. Sort of a more aerodynamic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang look.

Thanks for reading 🙂

His passing last week, on the wake of all of the other news last week, seemed fitting. Almost as if there was no reason to remain, that it really was “Closing Time”.  I can’t begin to count the number of memories I have that definitely have a Leonard Cohen song as part of their soundtrack.

His music and genius was something I shared with everyone I loved, regardless of age. On the mixes I would make for Raven, there was Leonard. For my mom, there were 10th row floor seats at Vancouver’s GM Place to see him sing. I remember that she would crank up the Leonard Cohen any time she had to spend time doing something boring, like sorting through boxes. And she would sing along. When she got her first MP3 player, it had was full of Leonard Cohen and the Gipsy Kings.

When we went to see him at GM Place, the Canadian border agents thought we were nuts. To come all the way to Vancouver for a concert… But it was Leonard Cohen. On the way home, around 1230, we stopped at a Tim Horton’s and tried to find our way to some kind of vegetarian dinner. I remember we were the only two customers and we had really crappy bagels and machine cappuccinos. But it didn’t matter, because we were still wrapped in the magic of seeing him live.

The US Customs agents were not as polite about expressing the confusion as their Canadian counterparts but I chalked it up to a combination of their ignorance about the greatness of Leonard and their too tight polyester/rayon uniforms. Sometimes it is easier to empathize with someone when you take a look at the fabric choices they have to make. 😉

I thought that one day, if he was still touring at 84, which would not have surprised me, I would have taken Raven as well.

On the other side of the musical spectrum, GG and I saw Regina Spektor last week and last night we saw the Cure. I am still listening to them now, sort of burrowing myself in their genius or trying to extend the experience.

Tonight’s the biggest moon since 1948. I saw a hint of it last night but tonight the clouds are covering it up and it is raining. It seems appropriate.