More on the San Diego Fires

Disaster Area! Smokey, bad air to breath. Some areas no electric. Some with no natural gas. Animals trapped, houses destroyed, highways closed, schools closed, evacuations to schools, churches, community centers; fires consuming neighborhoods, big beautiful houses with gorgeous views, expensive. Trees, bushes, grass, everything is dry. Easy to catch on fire. So Sad!

Now Solano Beach has to be evacuated and that goes all the way to the coast! Imagine that! The coast!! No one thought it would ever go that far.

Looters are out, police are arresting people, it's CRAZY!

My neighborhood is safe so far. But I'm ready to leave if told to go. Some areas were only given a 2 minute warning to leave. The only thing I have to do is throw the dog food into the bag, grab our laundry basket from upstairs and pull the car out, grabbing a couple more boxes of pictures.

I pray, I pray. Please pray

San Diego County Fires

Hello everyone. It's a crazy day. San Diego County - 7 FIRES RIGHT NOW!! Over 250,000 people evacuated, houses burned down, large animals evacuated to 2 locations in the county, roads closed, fires burning. It's so sad. I hope they can get this under control, but as of this writing is 0% UNDER CONTROL.

The closest fire to my house is about 7 miles away. So, hopefully it will get contained and we'll be ok.

The Santa Ana winds will be kicking up for the next 3 days. It's going to be a long week and we might make it staying here today, but we could easily be evacuated any day this week. They are predicting that this fire will burn all the way to the ocean. We live about 7 miles east of the ocean, and it could easily zip past us. Phew!

It's a state of emergency, strong winds too much for the air fighters. It's so dry, low low low humidity. The whole place is a tinderbox - no rain in years, one spark will set off a fire easily. The county is smokey, firey, and scary. Phone calls for emergencies only. Wow, I've never experienced anything like this before.

This is the largest fire ever in this area. TV, radio, internet all good resources for help. I pray for all people in this area, for their safety.

Motivation

I have been so overwhelmed at work and believe I am caught up - or at least for the most part. I got good news this week, they have an open req to hire another Program Manager, so I will have some help with my accounts. It's a good thing because I was not affective being overworked. So today, I came home from work early, am working on the some process diagrams and hope to be ok at work tomorrow.

What do you do when you are behind or overwhelmed? How do you dig yourself out of the hole? I have a tough time once I get behind. Especially if the work is very detailed and requires a great deal of my time when 8 other clients are waiting in line and their work is piling up.

Happy day today! It's nice to feel good about your job.

Autumn in So Cal

It's beautiful weather - oh wait....it's southern California.....it's MOST always beautiful weather. But right now, it's perfect to me! Nice cool nights, warm sunny days. You just can't beat it. It stays this way for mostly 8 or 9 months a year. The other 3 to 4 months are either really hot or cooler and raining.

It's a good place to be and enjoy the outdoors.

So busy at work

Have you ever been so busy at work that you just can't get caught up? Well, that's where I am right now. No matter how hard and how much I do, I just can't recover from my vacation a few weeks ago. It's very frustrating because I had it under control before I left.

I could use some advice from you if you have organized your emails in such a way that you were able to get through all of them after a holiday. I have read and read them and still to no avail. I think the only choice I have is to delete them and start over - HAHA!! JUST KIDDING! Seriously, I could use some pointers from other project managers or managers that have over 500 unread emails!! What do you do to help ease the burden?

My other issue is that most of the emails require some sort of response or action on my part....eecckkkkk! THE LIFE OF A PROJECT MANAGER is not always the easiest life!

"Knowing others is intelligence,
knowing yourself is true wisdom."
-- Lao Tzu

New Music On My Blog

Good morning!! I had some fun last night finding a new music player for my blog and for myspace. Check it out! It's a great addition and helps my blog be more of a destination - which will help me write in it more often :)

I hope you enjoy the tunes!

Our Dream

It's great to be in a loving relationship where we share the same dream. The Toltecs describe the Dream as our own reality. We make it what we want - sometimes it's a bad life full of misery and other times it's a wonderful life full of love and happiness. Since LOVE and HAPPINESS come from our hearts, we are responsible for which way our dream is going - good or bad.

Our dream comes with the dream to move back to Ohio, now that he's retired. Since we are both from there, we find it to be just as beautiful as people find California. I have to say, after living here for 2 years, my observations and viewpoints are still from an outsider point of view. I see people working 2 and 3 jobs just to pay for a stucco house and a "designer" car. It is definitely the land of "who can out do their neighbors". Which house has the best landscaping, the best car, the most stuff........Geez! Get a life! Not our dream!

click here http://flickr.com/photos/disposabl/307405848/ to see more from the same photographer!

There was a song, when I was a teenager, by the Monkees (ok, don't laugh) called Pleasant Valley Sunday. They talked about all the track houses that look the same (just like in the pic), people washing their cars, cutting their grass - yes, believe it or not people in California USED TO cut their own grass!!!

I like where we live - compared to other places in No San Diego County. But look how close everyone lives - I can lie in bed at night and hear people coughing and one neighbor who has a smokers cough I hear her gagging all night long, I hear people dial their cordless phones - you know the "beep beep beep" of numbers? Yea, I can hear that. I hear the young mother next door yelling at her kids all day long while her marine husband is on base. No wonder they are sooo happy when dad gets home! I hear kids telling their parents good night. I mean it's ridiculous. It's never 100% quiet and it's never 100% dark here.

But we have our dream - our dream to live in Cincinnati again, to return to the place where our family and friends live. And it can't be soon enough for me. Don't get me wrong, it's been great living here, I love the ocean, the mountains, the weather - but the truth is friends are few and far between, I spend at least 12 hrs /day commuting and working. I wake up at 5am and have to go to bed around 9:30 or 10. It seems all I do is work, so we can just live.

And now that he's retired, he helps me so much. I don't have to do the grocery shopping or laundry or even clean the house. He does it so I can come home and spend time with him, and on the weekends, we can just do what we want to. That is soooooooooooooo nice! He even cooks dinner most nights. He and I are living our dream. It's great.

Our dream includes that hope to move back to the land of our roots. Here's an example of a dream house for us. Big yard, pool, hot tub, lots of green, privacy, no coughing neighbors right outside! I hope it happens soon!