Be a "Smover" (one who smiles & moves)

It's a short 3 minute video.

Apply it to work. Apply it to life.

Are you ready? Let's smove ;-)

It Was a Dark and Stormy Midday

A major storm passed through the Dallas Fort Worth area last night and it's still raining outside . . . and inside my loft. After a restless night of waking to thunder and lightning, I thought I'd sleep a little later than usual, but my cats had other ideas and were quite vocal in their desire that I get out of bed and attend to them this morning.

I imagined it was because their food bowls were empty. I never imagined it was because their food bowls were filled with water . . . and that there was a large puddle of water at the other end of my itty bitty loft and that the rain, still pouring down quite hard and blowing sideways, was also raining inside . . . and that my dining table and chairs were sitting in water and rugs were wet.

I quickly moved furniture and picked up watere-soaked rugs, grabbed towels to mop up the water and tried to keep up with the water pouring in as best as I could. It continued to pour in Not from just under and around the French doors, as I imagined, but from the top of the door frame, above the windows as well, from where the raindrops would bounce and propel themselves quite far into the room. I put down a dry, folded towel at the point the rain was falling inside, to soak it up and prevent it's spread. My cat, Johnny, promptly decided to play . . . because, as we all know, to a cat, everything is a toy, even a dry bath towel.



Eventually, he abandoned his toy and I was able to use it as intended. Later, he would begrudgingly perched on top of it as is and watch the weather through the glass. The rain slowed a bit temporarily–and stopped blowing sideways–and I was able to take this photo of the skies above City Hall at 11AM. It's quite a contrast to the hot, bright sunny days of the past few weeks.



Since starting this blog post, the skies have opened up again and the lightning and thunder have been non-stop. I think Johnny has even joined his scaredy cat sister, Grace Hopper, deep inside a cabinet as away from the excitement as possible and I'm going to turn off the computer as soon as I finish this post. I won't be surprised if we lose power–this is pretty spectacular . . . and the water is pouring in again. Gotta run and grab some dry towels.

A New Adventure

I've always been a fan of leaving the car behind whenever possible and last Friday, I finally bought myself one of these . . . and planned to take the trains and buses whenever I can wherever I'm going for the month of June.

We'll see how it goes. So far, pretty good.

I managed to bus my way across town to meet a friend at a coffee shop on Saturday morning. That's Baylor Medical Center beyond the bus stop.

Few cities have perfect public transportation systems, and my pass won't take me every where I need to go, but it will be interesting to see how much I'll be able to use it.

On the walk from the bus back to my loft, I walked through this interesting passage between buildings that continues outside under an arbor.





As you walk through the arched passageway, you get a peek into a gallery that you completely miss, if you're driving by. It's a nice benefit for pedestrians.

My Name is Sophie and I am a Lapsed Blogger

Early this morning, Neka, a newly met friend and fellow job hunter–recently moved to Dallas from Ohio–sent me this, in an email message:

LOL! Just thinking someone needs to hire us...we're "work-a-holics"...when we're not networking, we're on the computer late at night and real early in the morning. This will come to an end soon. :)

Whether you refer to it as being "pre-employed," as one of the large DFW career transition groups prefers, unemployed, or–my personal favorite–on the hunt, looking for a job easily consumes more time and energy than any job I have ever had and I've worked in some pretty intense start-ups . . . as a consequence, quilting, knitting, and blogging about quilting, knitting and other fun things have fallen by the wayside.

. . . and yet, lately I find myself thinking about blogging about my job hunt, as a way to share the information I find with my fellow hunters and let my friends and readers see what I'm up to . . . which is sometimes interesting even if it isn't creative and filled with fiber eye candy.

Of course, I'd still need to find the time . . . and this morning, I found the answer, on Jodie's Ric-Rac blog. Crafters are the most creative problem solver's aren't they? All I really need is a Craft Clock.


As Jodie says,

When everyone around is flagging at 11pm - you can keep on rockin' through until 13 or 14 O'Clock and still get plenty of beauty sleep.

See more images of her wonderful answer to time management here: In All Good Stores.