The Next Chapter

After contemplating for more than a year, I did it.  In June I turned in my resignation at my job.  I had worked in accounting and finance with the same company for 25 years.  During the last two years, it was not the same great place to work at that it once was.  After doing some personal financial analysis, Todd & I decided it was the right time for me to quit my job and take a long sabbatical.  I’m open to working at a part-time job in the future, so it’s not a true retirement yet.  But after 25 years of working month-ends, quarter-ends, and year-ends, I was ready to do something different.

I wore this shirt that I made using iron-on transfer letters on my last day of work, ha ha.

I was going to leave in mid-July, but in early July my management asked me to stay until the end of August so that they could have time to find my replacement.  They offered some additional bonus compensation to me and I agreed.  My last day of work was August 31st.  My replacement started on 8/27 so I only had a week to train him.  I did the best I could. 

Oh and the week before my last week, I had my hair dyed pink again.  To celebrate leaving the workforce.  My hair stylist Mel posted this photo on her IG account.  My hair was VERY pink this time, LOL.  But I really like it.  It’s me.

A couple of weeks before my last day, my best girlfriends at work had a goodbye lunch for me. 

I would be sad, but I know I’ll have regular lunches with these ladies still.  I was so blessed to have this supportive group of women to hang out with at work. 

On my last day of work, they happened to have a Hawaiian Luau luncheon quarterly celebration at work.  So I went out in style!

I didn’t cry until a couple of days later.  Working there for 25 years was a HUGE chapter of my life.  The company moved us from Dayton to San Diego, changing the course of my life forever.  I’ve made some friends there that I’ve known since I was 23 years old.  I chose this time to leave because they are making tremendous changes at the company in the next few months and most of my old friends will lose their jobs.  I wanted to leave anyway, and it was a good time to not see the changes the next few months.  (My job was not in jeopardy, so if I would have stayed, I would have had to experience every one I knew leaving.)

I sent out my goodbye email to everyone on Monday of my last week at work.  I would like to share it here too.

Subject:  Onwards & Upwards

Colleagues & Friends,

In 1993 I was a starry-eyed accounting graduate from The Ohio State University, beginning my career at NCR, full of hopes and dreams for the future.  I worked hard, got my master’s degree while working full-time, relocated from Dayton to San Diego, held various positions in accounting and finance, and learned so many lessons along the way.

It’s 2018 and I’m once again a starry-eyed (albeit older) person, trying to find my way in this world.  After months of contemplation and deliberation, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave Teradata and start the next chapter of my life.  It’s been an awesome 25-year run and I’m immensely grateful for the entire experience.  I never imagined that I would stay for so long at the same company.  It really is a credit to the wonderful people I’ve gotten to work with along the way.

You may be wondering, what are my plans for the future?  For the immediate next few months, I will be visiting family across the country, tackling some home projects that I’ve put off, and figuring out what makes my heart sing again.  I’ve come to realize that just because I’ve done something for 25 years doesn’t mean that I can’t do something new in the future.  The possibilities are endless and I’m really excited to explore them.  It feels scary and exhilarating at the same time, sort of like that one time when I jumped out of an airplane at 13,000 feet.

My last day here will be this Friday, August 31st.  I hope to get a chance to talk to you individually before I leave.  If you are in San Diego campus, I will see you this Friday in the courtyard for the campus luncheon.

You can keep in contact with me through these channels, and I really hope you do.

(Contact info redacted for privacy purposes.)

Warmest regards,

Christine  Newman

Had to turn in my badge and sign a form the last day before I left.

I’m tremendously proud of all that I accomplished during my 25 year career.  I think it’s really rare for anyone to work at the same company for that long anymore.  I’ve survived many many changes and reductions in force.  I always did my best in everything and tried to contribute and add value to business decisions through my financial analysis. 

I’m excited to start the next chapter of my life! 

Read More »

Making Me Happy This Week–2/4/2018

One thing that I’ve been doing for a couple of years in my paper notebook is making a sort-of-weekly list of things that are “Making Me Happy This Week”.  I thought I would start sharing them here on the blog, because we could all use some reminder of what makes us happy.  Maybe it will inspire you to make your own list regularly. 

Here’s what’s been making me happy this week.

• Packing up more stuff and donating them to charity.
• Super warm weather and lots of sunshine and blue skies.  (See first photo – my view walking in to work.)  I’ve been wearing spring and summer clothes!
• Trying out a new Thai restaurant nearby.  It’s spicy but flavorful and good!
• My new 90’s retro stretchy platform sandals.  Remember these???  The 90’s called, and it wants its stretchy platform slides back! Got these on clearance at Target.
• Dressing slightly up for work.  I felt great and confident!
• Inadvertent good hair days.
• Losing weight without calorie-counting.  Since 2014 I’ve tried to lose weight by doing Weight Watchers or tracking food/calories in My Fitness Pal.  None of it really worked.  If I had to guess why it didn’t work for me is that tracking food felt like a diet and unsustainable for me.  If this is a topic that you would like me to elaborate/discuss further in a separate blog post, let me know in the comments.  (No, I am most definitely not selling anything to you.  Just if you would like to hear my thoughts on this.)
• Todd volunteering at Ronald McDonald House.  He cooked and served breakfast there, along with his Toastmasters teammates.  (He was on egg duty and he HATES the smell of eggs!)
• Todd making his famous brown sugar cookies for the Scala programming class that he taught at work.  I didn’t get a photo of the cookies, but they are delicious, and everyone loved them.  If you know Todd well, then you know that one of the things that gives him the biggest satisfaction is to coin him an "expert" in an area. In January he launched a Scala programming class at his work, doing it for free at lunch time. It was at the request of the other programmers at work. He had "tutoring sessions" at lunch, where people could ask for help. I'm not there, but I imagine him as a professor doing "office hours" to help students. It's SO him. And I'm so proud of him, and I know he loves it too.
• Training Noodle to walk outside on a leash.  He only lasted a minute and wanted to dart back inside, but it was a first step, ha ha.
• Me kicking a$$ at work this week.  On Thursday morning I was asked to present/review the 2018 budget ($66M) in detail on Friday morning to the Senior Vice President (officer of the company) of our division and his leadership team.  Not only that, but my finance VP wanted to meet with me Thursday in short notice to go over everything before I presented it on Friday morning.  I nailed it in both meetings.  The “old me” prior to my leave of absence last year would have been so nervous and stressed out to do this on such short notice.  The “new me” didn’t even get stressed.  I knew that I know the numbers like the back of my hand, and that I was the expert in the room despite being the only woman and being the least senior person.  I was not scared and I simply kicked a$$.  It was a defining moment in my career. 
• Relatedly… my new work mindset is making me so happy and satisfied.  My 10 week leave of absence from work was the BEST thing I’ve ever done for my career.  I got so much clarity from it.  I also formed a new mindset and framework about the role of work in my life.  It really prepared me for the changes to come at work that I didn’t even know about at the time.  I’m so grateful that I was able to take the time off.
• Still not buying things (unless replacing broken things) until we’ve purged and organized and can get a good handle on all that we already have.
• Following organization accounts on Instagram for inspiration.
• This article:  Defining Yourself by What You Love, not what you dislike.  Absolutely resonated with me. 

Read More »

Before I Went Back To Work

(This post is postdated back to 9/24, the day before I went back to work.  Just so most posts are somewhat chronological on the blog.)

Ah, so much fun happened in September before I went back to work.  I guess I should say that we made the fun happen, knowing full well that my time of freedom was limited and the end of my leave was near.

On Saturday 9/2 we tried out the new Mendocino Farms in Del Mar for lunch.  We both got salads.  I got the chicken prosciutto salad.  It was huge and I had to take some home.

Todd got this other salad.  (I don’t remember the name, LOL.)

This place is know for their salads and sandwiches.  We saw some other people’s food and everything looked good and fresh.

On Sunday 9/3, after Todd went swimming in the ocean with the Tri Club, we went out to lunch at Curry & More.  Love this place!  I think we went there three times during my leave!

And now, an interlude from Noodle… I love sitting on my catdad when he’s using his laptop in his recliner.  Look at me, king of the house.

On Monday 9/4 (Labor Day) we went out to lunch at URBN Pizza.  It’s New Haven style pizza and we really like it.  We had gone there several times before, including for Todd’s birthday this past February.

We also had the roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon.  Yum!

Afterwards we went to Extraordinary Desserts and shared Todd’s favorite cake there, the Trouffe Framboise, and a latte.  This was sort of to celebrate that I finished my 6-week workout program without missing any workouts.  (Yea I know you’re not supposed to reward yourself with food.  I.DON’T.CARE.)

On Tuesday 9/5, I had lunch with my friend Lauren at BJ’s.  It was a lot of fun!  We chatted and caught up on life.

And now, a word from Noodle.  I found this red chair to sleep in, and it was so comfy!  Of course, everything in the house is MINE, so I don’t know why I haven’t slept here in so long.

Also, when catdad comes home from swimming in the ocean, and puts his towel on the ground, it’s for me to sleep on too.

On Thursday 9/7, I met my friend Anne for lunch at Tofu House. 

It was her first time there and she liked it!  We had a lot of fun chatting about our jobs, work life, etc. 

On Tuesday 9/12, I had lunch with a bunch of women friends from work.  We went to Pailin Thai.  It was so much fun hanging out with them.  We chatted about work and what’s going on with each of them.  I’m blessed to have friends from work.

On the same day, right after lunch, I got a text from my manager at work.  I had asked to extend my leave to mid-October.  At first he had said he was supportive.  But two people who were covering for me at work could no longer do it, and they were too overwhelmed.  He said, “If your goal was to make me appreciate you more, I think you have achieved that.”  He offered me a free (off the books) week off in mid-October, if I went back to work on 9/25 and worked the three weeks for quarter-end and the forecasting cycle.  I reluctantly agreed, but I was pretty bummed.

I wrote an Ode To My Shorts on Facebook on Monday 9/18: 

This is the last week of my leave from work. I have agreed to return to work next Monday. This was the first summer in 25 years that I was able to wear shorts all day every day. What a glorious summer it was! I bought a few pairs of shorts to go to Hawaii in April. Little did I know that they would be all I would wear all summer. I loved my Summer of Shorts! I'm sad to return to work next week, but grateful that I had the time of my life the last two months!

Thank you shorts, for the best summer of my life!

Todd made carrot cake to bring to his work book club, so I was the beneficiary of carrot cake for breakfast on 9/21.

 

Noodle has some words to say.  I loved the summer of having a SAHCM (Stay At Home Cat Mom).  It was so great.  I had company at home, and I loved getting snacks and treats during the day.  I also loved watching catmom workout every morning while playing in the papers behind her.

Also, the hoomans got a storage bench at the end of their bed.  They put a towel there and I knew it was a place for me to sleep right away.  That first night I spent the whole night sleeping there.  And then the entire morning the next day!  I only took a break to eat!

On Friday 9/22, I got a pink color refresh by Mel at Ahura Salon.  I wanted to have super-pink hair for returning to work!  (But I still refuse to cover my grown-out grays on top!)

On the same day, Todd’s new iphone 8 Plus came!  He used his iphone 6 for three years and it was starting to be unreliable (rebooting by itself, not charging correctly, etc.), so it was time.  I am still using my iphone 6 because it’s perfectly good, and I’m not paying for a new phone until it breaks!  Todd was really excited though.  And the two camera lenses with optical zoom and portrait mode is pretty spectacular.

On this same Friday Todd came home from work and told me the tremendous good news that he had a meeting with his manager at 3:30 that day and she told him he got his promotion!  It is something we’ve been waiting 10 months for!  I loved hearing this good news three days before I myself headed back to work. 

On Saturday 9/23 we went to Tofu House for dinner.  I just went with Anne, but I love it so we went again.

I finished reading the first Harry Potter book.  (I tried reading it 20 years ago in 1997 but it didn’t take.)  Then we rented the movie off Amazon and watched it on Sat 9/23. 

We spent my last day of freedom (Sunday 9/24) at the beach.  It was a great way to end my leave from work!  It was so clear and the sky was so blue.  Sunny and 75 degrees is my favorite. 

Afterwards we had lunch at Bongiornos. 

Then we had our Sunday night ritual of watching Game of Thrones.  We went back to re-watch Season 6.  Todd opened a bottle of his favorite Spanish wine Muga to celebrate his promotion, and we had some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

And then my 10 week leave of absence from work came to an end.

Read More »

Smile Because It Happened

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – often attributed to Dr. Seuss

My 10 weeks of leave of absence from work is almost over.  On Monday I go back to work.  I wanted to extend it to mid-October, but they really wanted me back at work for quarter-end.  I feel so wistful today.  I can honest say that I’ve had the most amazing time the last 2.5 months.  The best time of my adult life.  I’m so grateful for the opportunity to take this leave from work.  I would highly recommend anyone to do it if they can.  It makes me look forward to the day that I can “retire” from work, hopefully in a few years!

I have a few more posts to document my life the last 2-3 weeks, but it may not happen until this weekend or next weekend.  However, I wanted to write a summary post of how I feel about my leave of absence from work, and also what I’ve learned during this time.

• Don’t put your life on hold because of work demands, stress, or pressure.  I was giving the best of myself during work time, and the rest of my life was getting the shaft.  I was exhausted when I got home, and vegged out the rest of the evening.  I felt like a big slug.  I was not socializing with friends as much, because it just felt like I didn’t have the energy.  With everything going on at work lately (layoffs, massive changes, etc), my work friends and I have come to the sad conclusion that the corporation/company that you work for doesn’t really care about you.  They can get rid of you in a hot second.  So to think that you would be rewarded for putting in a ton of extra effort and time is foolish.  This is a hard lesson for me, since I am Type A overachiever personality.  But it is something that I really had to learn for myself.  Working extra hard and putting the rest of my life on hold did not get me any rewards at work.  It will not happen again.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me!
• Exercising is a priority.  I exercised 6 days per week during my leave.  I will continue to do so after I go back to work.  I had forgotten how many benefits there are to exercising regularly.  I talked about why I was able to stick to regular exercising this time in this post.  My body felt so great when I moved it every day.  I really enjoyed the types of exercises I was doing.  My daily energy level improved so much.  And daily exercising improved my overall mood.  I’m so glad that I was able to totally reset my relationship with exercising, and was able to do it consistently almost every single day.  This was one of my intentions for my leave, and I did it.  I will continue to do it.
• Make time for friends and family.  Social support is everything.  Before my leave, I was not socializing with friends as much.  It just felt like it was a big effort, after I had already “shot my wad” during the week at work.  This was totally wrong.  During my leave I was able to schedule social time with a friend every week, if not twice a week.  I loved hanging out with them and chatting.  It really gave me a sense of social support, and that I matter and I am cared for.  I saw my dad and Shelly and hung out with them.  I made a trip to Dallas to see my sister and her family.  All this was precious to me.  I will continue to make time for friends and family. 
• Sleeping is a priority.  We often have the mentality that sleep is the time leftover after we do all our other things.  We are short-changing ourselves on something that’s vastly important for our health.  Staying up to watch TV, watch movies, read, surf the internet, etc is totally not worth it.  Sleep is when our bodies regenerate.  Lack of sleep is related to a host of health issues.  Instead of thinking of sleep as depriving ourselves of doing those other things we want to do, we should think of sleep as the ultimate “me time”.  During my leave I was able to reset my sleeping habits and got 7-9 hours of sleep regularly.  It really made a big difference in my overall well-being. 

I thought I was going to get more accomplished during my leave.  Things like house projects, purging, cleaning, organizing, etc.  But I hardly got those things done.  I’ve come to realize those are secondary to my primary intentions above.  I mean, I can hire people to do these secondary things, but only I myself can do the priority things above.  Those were absolutely up to me, and they were the most urgent things that I needed to change about myself.  So in that respect I feel very accomplished and awesome! 

I feel nothing but gratefulness that I was able to take 10 weeks off work.  Grateful to my manager for allowing it to happen, at great cost to him and my team.  Grateful to Todd for supporting me.  I  have never felt happier in my adult life.  I will do everything I can to carry this knowledge and these changes forward.  Onwards and upwards!

Read More »

Sunshine in My Pocket

I cannot get over how happy & joyful I have been since the start of my leave of absence from work.  On various days, I would just randomly text Todd while he’s at work and say, “I’m SO happy!!”  It really has been the best time of my adult life.  I need to figure out how to carry this mindset with me when I return to work. I also need to figure out some coping mechanisms for the stress.  Work has not been my friend the last two years.  It was a perfect storm where I got way more responsibilities dumped on me, and then just massive changes happening every few months, and not being appreciated.  I was really unhappy at work and I let it permeate into the rest of my life.  No more!  I will write a separate post soon about my relationship with work and what I have learned since going on leave.

I’m behind on documenting the stuff we’ve been doing!

On Friday night 8/11 we drove down to the Embarcadero Marina to see the San Diego Symphony orchestra play all the scores from the ET movie while watching the movie.  I haven’t seen the movie in years!  As always, the combination of the San Diego waterfront, sunset, symphony, and movie is amazing.

Before the show, we had a quick dinner at The Kebab Shop.  We usually share a plate.

On Sunday 8/13 morning, Todd went swimming in the ocean with the San Diego Triathlon Club.  Someone got a group photo this time (I downloaded it from Facebook)!  Todd is on the left, right behind the waving hand.  Ocean swimming is no joke, so I’m glad Todd has the Tri Club to swim with!

After he came back, we went to Little Italy for some lunch.

We went to Monello, one of our favorite Italian restaurants in San Diego.  For weekend brunch, they have these croissants with nutella!  There are actually a few fillings you can pick from.

Todd had the fish.

I had the squid ink pasta with octopus.  This is my favorite dish there!

We thought the Little Italy Mercado (farmer’s market) was on Sundays, but it’s on Saturdays, so we missed it.  We walked around and went to Lofty Coffee to share a latte.

It was a fun outing in Little Italy.  We hadn’t been in a long while.  That evening, we took a walk after dinner, on the trail by our house.  The light was just perfect, and it was so picturesque.  Of course, we had to walk quickly so we could go back home and start watching Game of Thrones!

Todd took day off on Monday 8/14, so we went to lunch at Bongiornos.  This is Todd’s favorite casual pizza joint, so he’s always happy & excited to go there.

On Tuesday 8/15, we cooked Lemon-Browned Butter Cod with Hazelnut Pilaf.  One of our favorite fish dishes!

On Wednesday 8/16 I got my haircut and pink hair coloring done.  It took 4.5 hours!  If I were working I would have had to take a half day off for it.  Afterwards I met up with Todd at Punjabi Tandoor nearby for dinner.  This is our favorite Indian food in San Diego.

Afterwards, Todd’s softball team Mean Green Peace Machine (MGPM) played their playoff game against Natty Ice.  My friend Daryl plays on Natty Ice, so I went to game to watch it.  But my loyalty was with MGPM, of course! 

Todd played well.  He had a couple of hits and caught a couple of fly balls for outs in the outfield. 

But unfortunately, they lost to Natty Ice and were eliminated from the playoffs.  One last team cheer!

The team captain, Jared, told Todd afterwards that he nominated Todd for “Most Improved Player” this year.  That’s fantastic!  I’m so proud of Todd, especially since this was his first year playing.  And I loved seeing him bond with his teammates, be a team player, and having fun. 

On Friday 8/18, Todd led his work lunch book club in a discussion of the book “Meddling Kids”.  He got up early to make these chocolate chocolate chip cookies with chocolate cream cheese frosting, so he could bring it to book club!  These were fantastic.  He left two cookies for me and they were gone in no time.

Of couse, Monday 8/21 was the solar eclipse.  We didn’t have total eclipse in San Diego.  I think it was around 55% eclipse.  I went outside with a colander a few minutes before the max 55% eclipse and took some photos and a video during the max eclipse at 10:23 AM.  So fun!

Check out the crescent shaped shadows in the holes!

And I watched the total eclipse on TV as it went across the US.  So cool!

Read More »