Well, look who made it to sabbatical
May. 20th, 2017 11:42 pmC'est moi! I jittered my way through the workweek, pushed hard until the last hour, and went out as clean as I could possibly have hoped to for my four weeks of sabbatical/vacation/outage. It hasn't fully sunk in yet, on this first day that was much like a normal Saturday, but two things were different: first, I read a fun book cover-to-cover in between other things (The Girl With Ghost Eyes; yes, it was good. Yes, I read very fast). Second, when the party I was attending kind of blurred on for a while and I lost track of time, it didn't stress me out.
The one thing that deserves (but won't get) its own entry: blacksmithing offsite on Thursday, in which we made bottle openers. I am far, far happier with this bottle opener as an object than I was with the bracelet I made last time I went to this same place; also the bottle opener doesn't have bad memories on it. I might actually keep it and use it! Also, the proprietor of the smithy gave the same wonderful lecture on how when one is a toolmaker, one owes it to the world to smith up and fix things that are wrong with one's workspace or environment. Smith up! Fix it! He didn't know, and I had the honor of telling him, that![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
norwoodbridge and I have had an email thread about "smithing up" running since last year when we got that lecture the first time. He was super touched, and I felt good about allowing that circle to close.
I also learned the lovely phrase "think in the fire", which apparently is the often-lost other half of the "strike when the iron is hot" maxim. It doesn't mean to think while one is on fire but, rather, to use the time while the iron is sitting in the forge to plan one's next move and get things all set up. It has applications to life, I think: use the calm parts of life, get ready, think how you want things to be for the next time you need full functionality. As a manager, it could also mean: use the time when your team is calmly working on their project to be thinking about their next projects.
Little else to report... a freak 80-degree day and a 90-degree day have melted the ice off my bones, and I'm behind on reading/commenting but have a lot of tabs open for perusal tomorrow.
The one thing that deserves (but won't get) its own entry: blacksmithing offsite on Thursday, in which we made bottle openers. I am far, far happier with this bottle opener as an object than I was with the bracelet I made last time I went to this same place; also the bottle opener doesn't have bad memories on it. I might actually keep it and use it! Also, the proprietor of the smithy gave the same wonderful lecture on how when one is a toolmaker, one owes it to the world to smith up and fix things that are wrong with one's workspace or environment. Smith up! Fix it! He didn't know, and I had the honor of telling him, that
norwoodbridge and I have had an email thread about "smithing up" running since last year when we got that lecture the first time. He was super touched, and I felt good about allowing that circle to close.I also learned the lovely phrase "think in the fire", which apparently is the often-lost other half of the "strike when the iron is hot" maxim. It doesn't mean to think while one is on fire but, rather, to use the time while the iron is sitting in the forge to plan one's next move and get things all set up. It has applications to life, I think: use the calm parts of life, get ready, think how you want things to be for the next time you need full functionality. As a manager, it could also mean: use the time when your team is calmly working on their project to be thinking about their next projects.
Little else to report... a freak 80-degree day and a 90-degree day have melted the ice off my bones, and I'm behind on reading/commenting but have a lot of tabs open for perusal tomorrow.
