Workaholism

This is my favorite excerpt (thus far) in Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

"Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people burning the midnight oil. They pull all nighters and sleep at the office. It's considered a badge of honor to kill yourself over a project. No amount of work is too much work.

Not only is this workaholism unnecessary, it's stupid. Working more doesn't mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more.

Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve. First off, working like that just isn't sustainable over time. When the burnout crash comes-- and it will -- it'll hit that much harder.

Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions.

They even create crises. They don't look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime. They enjoy feeling like heroes. They create problems (often unwittingly) just so they can get off on working more.

Workaholics make the people who don't stay late feel inadequate for "merely" working reasonable hours. That leads to guilt and poor morale all around. Plus, it leads to an ass-in-seat mentality-- people stay late out of obligation, even if they aren't really being productive.

If all you do is work, you're unlikely to have sound judments. Your values and decision making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what's worth extra effort and what's not. And you wind up just plain tired. No one makes sharp decisions when tired.

In the end, workaholics don't actually accomplish more than nonworkaholics. They may claim to be perfectionists, but that just means they're wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task.

Workaholics aren't heroes. They don't save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done."

--Besides the fact that I believe this passage fits the public accounting environment perfectly, I also really like the fact that in the last line of this passage these two male authors wrote, "because she figured out a faster way to get things done."

CRAZY WEATHER!

Today was the hottest day of the year for our city with a temp of 104 degrees and it was HOT. Being outside felt like walking through a furnace (not that I have ever walked through a furnace, but the wind felt the same as when I open the oven that has been cooking food at 400 degrees. I'm really not exaggerating; I'm a summer person I grew up in the west Texas heat.

We've had seriously crazy weather so far this year including:
A Christmas blizzard (which thankfully we mainly avoided by getting out of town just before it started and Philip was able to drive back home right after they reopened the interstate. I borrowed these pics)

January Icestorms
Ordinary run of the mill tornadoes (this pic is one of the many in May, which thankfully we were in Dallas at the time. The tornado went right through our town, but jumped over our subdivision)
Hail storms of biblical proportions (this hail storm produced hail as big as softballs and that came down hard enough to break windows, go through roofs, and leave deep rivets in the yard)

This summer's hot weather has torched the little bit of landscaping we have. I trimmed and watered our thirsty rose bushes this morning. Our new tree went into shock and lost almost all its leaves, but is now improving a lil with some TLC. Even the weeds are dying; I took this pic with my iphone, the top of the weed is black like it has been burnt by the sun!

Raegan Elizabeth

Raegan you are our lil worry wort (if that is even a word?).

Every morning you wake up and inspect the house for things that have changed since you went to bed. The other morning you noticed a box I had set out in the hallway and said "What's this?" As if you needed to know about everything that is in our house.

At the library the other day during story time, the story reader was blowing bubbles. While the other kids jumped around and laughed with excitement you said "uh oh" each time one hit the ground.

The other night we had spaghetti for dinner, you were doing great eating the noodles, until you came across a piece of hamburger meat and said "uh-oh, what's this?" You aren't a big meat fan, unless its chicken (wonder why?) : )

When you see a cabinet door open or a drawer open you say "uh oh" and try to close it.

This morning you went around the house and found tiny pieces of trash (like an eraser size piece of foil) on the floor and then brought them to me, pointed to the trash can (which is on top of the toilet, so you can't reach them) and said "trash". I pulled the trash can down each time and you threw your little pieces of trash in it and then gave me a proud smile and clapped for yourself. You amaze me!

The other day I drove 42 miles (roundtrip) out of my way and Philip spent nearly an hour cleaning up this slide I found on craigslist just for this... enjoy!

And just a couple of recent pics...

At the splash park with daddy

Just doing some shopping

Looking at ducks with daddy at the Cowboy's Heritage Museum. We love the way your hair curls up in the back ; )

Playing with mommy in the dressing room at Express

Much needed rest after playing so hard

5 things

A few posts back I mentioned 5 things I was going to try and do everyday; they were:
-pray
-stretch
-learn something new
-floss
and
-help someone else

Pray
I find myself needing pray and praying for others constantly throughout the day. I like that I can talk to God anytime, it gives me hope and is comforting. I always start my prayers by telling God how thankful I am for all that he has given me.

Stretch
I need to work on this and exercising more... I used to be a lot better at stretching every morning and night.

Learn something new
This one is easy, mainly because I made it so generic. I learn new things at work all the time. Philip teaches me things about his business nearly everyday and I'm learning how to be a better mommy to Raegan all the time too. I'm also reading "Rework" right now, which has given me a lot of new ideas!

Floss
Getting much better :) I used to have to thread the floss through my teeth, which took a long time, but now I don't have to do that anymore flossing isn't such a pain.

Help someone else
Now that Raegan knows the sign for 'help,' I realize how many times a day I help her. There's only so much you can do when your 2 ft tall ;) Today I had two opportunities to help strangers that I think made a bigger impact on me than it did them. Raegan and I went to our favorite baby consignment store this morning and a lady with two children behind us was asking them what they wanted for lunch, I could tell they didn't have a lot of money, so I pulled out some Chick-fil-A coupons and handed them to her. She was so surprised and happy, she thanked me profusely and then gave her little boy a hug and said "do you want some chicken?" I like handing out these coupons to strangers, a couple of weeks ago I gave one to the lady in the ticket booth on my way out of a garage downtown. I think its little things like this that can make someone's day. For lunch today Raegan and I went to the mall to see Philip. The mall was packed so we sat out in the commons area instead of the Chick-fil-A dining room. So it was just Raegan and me at a table with 5 chairs. I saw a Subway employee escorting a blind woman who was looking for a place to sit and eat her lunch. I told him she could sit with us and she agreed. This may of been the first time I've ever spoken to a blind person; she was very kind. She told me she takes the bus, which drops her off at the Old Navy entrance of the mall, about 3 times a week. She also told me that she had only hit one person with her cane in the busy mall that day so she was doing good ;) We talked for awhile and turns out we even have friends in common. When we were done eating I let her hold on to Raegan's stroller and we walked down to the Old Navy entrance so she could wait for the bus. I can't imagine the challenges she faces everyday.

Raegan at 16 months

Favorite things to do:
Make mommy and daddy play ring around the rosie with you
Squeal when you see a dog
Spin around in circles
Go outside

Draw on your magnadoodle

Play in water

Words we can understand you say: outside, toes, diaper, mom, dad, dada, daddy, momma, mine, yes, no, milk, nurse, dog, kitty cat, shoes, hi, bow, door, go
Signs you use: milk, please, hat, eat, more, help, water and nightnight
You understand when we say: kick your legs (when you are playing in the tub), go find it (when we are looking for something), and get in your chair (when its time to eat).

Biggest accomplishments: you went potty in the toilet by yourself, you know how to brush your own teeth, you’ve learned to say please when you really want something, you finally have enough hair for pigtails, you always want to turn off the lights with daddy when its time to go to bed, and you always give us kisses before we lay you down at night.
We love you baby girl!

Packed Weekend

Friday, we held our 'block party' in our backyard. I spent the day shopping and planning the party. It turned out well. The kiddos played in the water, while we cooked, ate, and played some washers. Here are a couple of pictures one of the our friends' daughter, Raygan (4), took during the party.

Saturday morning I worked on cleaning up from the night before. Then Raegan and I went to a new consignment store, where we bought puzzles, that we played with a lot this weekend. Philip came home for dinner Saturday night, and to take us to Lowe's to buy a new kitchen sink, but then had to go back to finish end of the month procedures for work. His parents came in town Saturday night after Raegan had already gone to bed. Philip's parents watched Raegan for us on Sunday while we went with Philip's employees to Frontier City (Frontier City:Oklahoma::Six Flags: Texas) for all you non-OK readers ;) About 20 people were in our group and the park was small enough for us to all see each other often. My favorite ride was probably the wooden rollercoaster even though it was pretty rough. I also enjoyed my first corndog in years, gosh it was delicious! On the way home Philip and I stopped and got snocones, I got Pink Bubblegum one and Philip got half rasberry half marshmellow.

Pics from the iphone at Frontier City
After a long day at the amusement park, Philip's parents had dinner waiting for us at home! Lasagna with homemade banana pudding for dessert, yum!!! Then we started on two projects

- removing the old sink and installing the new stainless steel 9 inch deep one
- taking apart the bedroom furniture in the kids room and loading it into Philip's dad's truck to take back to Texas.

Neither task proved easy. As for the sink a part from the garbage disposal wouldn't come off, so we may have to buy a new disposal too. On the bed one of the bolts that holds the footboard to the baseboard wouldn't come unscrewed. We tried everything; ended up splitting the wood and the having to saw off the head of the bolt just to get the two pieces apart. Not so good... the house was a total wreck while all this was going on, but you would've never guessed it by 10 AM this morning when the home appraiser came (since we are refinancing the house). Anyways this weekend really wore me out, so I think I'm going to try and sneak in a nap while the little one is taking hers!

Pics of the new sink to come soon ; )

P31 Woman

I want to be the woman who's husband trusts her,

who does him good and not harm all the days of her life,

who works with willing hands,

who rises before everyone else to take care of needs like clothing and food,

a woman who dresses herself with strength physically and spiritually,

one who works until the work is done,

the one who keeps things steady,

who helps the needy,

who makes herself appealing for her husband,

one who is proud of her husband and lets people know it,

who has much dignity,

one who overflows with wisdom and has a kind tongue,

one who is not lazy,

a woman who's children call her blessed and her husband praises her,

one who remembers that charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,

but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised!

(Proverbs 31:10-31)