Sunny springtime, 6 pm in the backyard

I've just got to capture, for future-me, the immensely happy feeling I had yesterday, and all the past weekend, before I forget it. It will fade away, guaranteed, with all the things that will happen between now and the future.

It wasn't any grand adventure or big event. It was just us. Just a very unplanned, no commitments weekend in spring - the kind I love best. In fact, I was SO spontaneous that late the week before, I texted the mom of a friend of Kate's, to ask if she could spend the night. And she could! So I drove her home with us after school on Friday and the two girls were very happy. They were so BUSY in Kate's room -- creating an "office" in her closet, and their "business," and asking me to come shop at their store, complete with pretend money. They drew/colored the paper money and cut it out themselves. They stayed up until nearly midnight. I let 'em. Kids love doing those kinds of "dangerous" things when it's a radical night like a sleepover, right? :) I was happy to let them. (Honestly, I snoozed on the couch while they watched multiple episodes of Disney sitcoms.)

Saturday I woke up and made just-add-milk-easy muffins for them, then left! Haircut and color. I hope Shawn wasn't upset with me for leaving him with the extra kid, but it had to be done. I have a feeling they played better without me there. Kate still tends to need me to be with her. We took Reese home Saturday afternoon and then went out for dinner at our new favorite BBQ place. So yummy. We played frisbee in the backyard afterwards, AND jumped on the trampoline. That's where the magic started -- our backyard. These spring nights have been just perfect. Low humidity, lots of sun, cool breeze, no pollen, no bugs. I mean... right?? We had to have dinner outside on Sunday,  because I couldn't be kept away from that weather. (Chicken fajitas, yum.) And we played more frisbee and then the kids trampolined some more while I sat, enjoying their giggles and the breeze. I called Mom and Dad.

Other little things making me happy:

• We bought outdoor pillows for the front porch bench and chairs and they're a lovely little touch I didn't realize we needed. I love them (red, of course).
• While we still haven't extended the back porch or fixed the fence, I think our backyard is looking great and inviting, thanks mostly to Shawn's hard work (with Alex's help) to plant some azaleas and lillies, and lay a brick border. And my firepit. :) All that it needs are four $20 chairs from Target.
• Monday, today, I have been able to hold onto this Filled-Up-With-Sunshine-&-Family-Time feeling. I've really really worked at staying filled up (still am). Not letting the office burst my bubble, no sir!
• One funny thing: I managed to do some yoga last night before the kids went to bed. However, while I was trying my new pose (Fish pose - not too hard, surprisingly, but in fact I AM rightly sore from it this afternoon)... in the living room next to me were three different soundtracks: Shawn's video game - gunshots mostly, rapid-fire; Kate's YouTube video - no headphones so I could hear the guy's British accent distinctly; and Alex's YouTube video he was watching -- same British YouTube gamer guy, different episode, also no headphones. I was trying to find my zen inside my head. [[big eyes of wonderment]]

Empty and blah

My tank is just EMPTY for work today. I am so over it. I know, I know, I say that all the time. I've actually been getting things done pretty well here lately -- digging deep and making progress on my big projects, and checking things off the list. But not today. I drafted something online and somehow hit the wrong key and it all disappeared, and there was no CTRL-Z UNDO to save me. So deflating. I just gave up after that, and it was only about 2:15.

The latest news is that we're moving our office. Only some of us. Only "sales and marketing." And they're planning to move us to midtown Atlanta. Which ISN'T GONNA WORK FOR ME and they know it. At least, I think they know it. I have done the hour-each-way commute before and I do not want to go back to that. I'm old enough to know better. My manager was very quick to try and laugh it off when the move was unceremoniously announced 2 weeks ago, and to assure me there would be flex-time options. I'll believe it when I see it, and yeah that would be great, but more than that I pray I won't be around to see it. In the meantime, though, before August, we're also supposed to squeeze into half the office space we're currently using. (Of course, my managers don't have to move. Very conveniently, they've managed to keep THEIR offices in the new floorplan, isn't that interesting?) But the marketing peons, myself and the graphic designer? We're being added to a block of cubicles with Accounting/Collections and next to Customer Service. Who are all on the phone 8 hours a day. Perfect for creative work, right? headdesk headdesk FML, get me my headphones and killmenow.

Besides all that, and this gets into some of the nitty-gritty of marketing (or at least marketing at our dumb company), but we're trying to roll out a New Brand Strategy and it's not easy. I was given this title of "Content Specialist," you know, but we're still trying to define the role. Last I heard, it means I'm going to have to work MORE closely with the Manager I dislike. I'm going to have to COME UP WITH the story ideas, plan them all out, including content for all the different "channels" like social media, articles online, brochures, newsletters, whatever... Oh, and also write it. All of it (the global English version). Oh, and if someone asks for a webinar on X subject? I probably will have to write -- or at least edit -- that, too, ensuring that it's in our New Brand Voice. President needs to send a letter to our customers? Welp, there's no Executive Assistant so Lee is tasked with that too. Customer Service needs a new script in the New Brand Voice? Where's Lee. She should do that.

I've already been getting bogged down in the details of the "Brand Voice." There are rules and intricacies, so even when I'm just trying to write a 25-character sub-headline, I can't just write it. It's like working a damn jigsaw puzzle to get every word exactly right. And then someone gets to veto it, if she feels like it. 

It's just too much, all the time, with no hope of ever having help (because budget - we still aren't making our sales numbers. I don't think we ever have, in all the years I've been here). Losing game, truly.

I'm sorry, I have been consciously trying not to feed my own negativity machine by writing about this here. I have done some real soul-searching about what's important to me, and really finding that I CAN focus just on those things, if I try. I've been having a better attitude, I promise. And I DO want to write about this past weekend, and our FAMILY busy-ness (=what's important to me), and moments of joy and Kate being sweet and Alex being sweet and growing up, and mine and Shawn's 15th anniversary. THAT life is perfect and full and wonderful.

But some days, I have to get it out of my head, about this job. I don't share it at home for a variety of reasons, and I don't share it with IRL friends because, I don't know, I don't want to be the one who's always complaining about her job. (So you're stuck reading it.)

Today I had a tiny idea, the briefest moment of inspiration, about what I MIGHT like to be writing - what I could give the world. It would cost me $8 to buy a domain name, and I might do that, just to see and make one small step toward DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. But meanwhile I do have to help put food on the table, and I'd rather stop doing that by being miserable here.