Photography | Team Trader Mom

Starting this week, I’m going to be partaking in a new challenge. As you may or may not know, my college degree is in art, with an emphasis in photography and computer graphics. Being the practical person that I am, I pursued the computer side of my training when I got in the real world because who can make a decent living as a photographer? Well, turns out a lot of people can with hard work and dedication. I guess I wasn’t willing to work that hard.

Anyway, 12 years after college graduation (Lord that makes me sound old) and I’m a technology analyst doing absolutely nothing creative with my days (except for figuring out new ways to write “that’s out of scope”). But I would like to channel my inner photographer again and this challenge will do just that.

ishouldbefoldinglaundry.com came up with this idea and it’s great fun (also you should check out her site because her pics are amazing)! She basically throws out a subject each Thursday and the goal is to take pics during the following week for your interpretation of that subject. Then you post your best pics the following Thursday. Since I’m new to this, I’ll be taking and posting last week’s stuff all in one day (today). However, I’ll give myself the full week to shoot photos for next week.

As I said, it’s been a while since I’ve done any “real” photography so I’ve forgotten a lot (aperture? shutter speed?). I also don’t have a digital SLR (and I refuse to go back to film for stuff like this) so I’ll have to make due with my point and shoot. I think I can still get some good stuff and like they say in the biz “Photoshop is your friend.”

The subject for today is “happy”. That could be interpreted in a number of ways. Here’s how I saw it.

I took this one on Monday and posted it when talking about the haircut I gave her. But I’m reusing it because it totally fits with this theme and not only is she happy here, but it makes me happy to look at it!

I love mornings when Munchkin wakes up before I leave for work. On those days I get to go in and see her smiling face and kiss her little forehead. Today she was playing with some of her stuffed animal friends and reading an Elmo book when I went in there. She got a big smile when I walked in and was proud to show me all the friends in her book.

No explanation needed. Cookies make me happy. Very happy.

Isabella loves to be tickled and we love to hear her laugh! Her squeals of delight can instantly turn the day around for me. Happy to infinity!

Finally, I can’t talk about what makes me happy and not include something related to volleyball. It just so happened that today was Team Trader Thursday so I took this pic at the gym before we started playing. While I wasn’t real happy with how I played tonight, I still have fun every week no matter what because of the girls I play with.

That’s it! Stay tuned for next week’s edition of “You Capture”. The theme is “red”.

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It’s Bone Time

aka A Day in the Life of Team Trader Mom

Last week I read on Simply Rebekah the idea of taking a picture once an hour to chronicle your “typical day”. I committed then to doing this experiment and randomly picked Wednesday, January 12th as “the day”. Well, turns out 1/12/11 was to be my last day working from the Annex so it was kind of fitting to document that day, as the end of an era, so to speak.

This will also be the last Annexed post, as least for a while. There may be more if I have to go back there for some meetings, but most likely I’ll try to find another series to fill this one’s place.

So, without further adieu, here is “A Day in the Life of TTM”, from Wednesday 1/12/11.

[Note – in some cases I shot 2 pics for the same hour because there were a couple things going on that needed to be documented. Hey, sometimes you have to break the rules!]

5:00 a.m. – Time to get up!

Yes, I get up at 5 am on a typical day. Why? It’s a form of self-mutilation. Some people cut themselves. Others get piercings. I prefer to violently jar myself out of a restful sleep so that I can get a workout in. Time to rise and shine!

6:00 a.m. – Pilates

This is the view of the TV as I’m laying on the ground working my inner thighs. As a freeze frame, it looks kind of weird and a little sexual. Believe me, there was nothing sexy about it. I purposely workout in the dark because it’s less painful, especially when I’m doing stuff on the floor that requires me to look up. Who wants to stare in to the lights while being ~~tortured~~ conditioned at 6am?

7:00 a.m. – Getting ready for work

First of all, I hope you appreciate the fact that I am posting a pic of myself without having done anything to my hair and or with a stitch of make-up on. I sacrifice because I love you. Anywho, I am getting ready for work and at this point have blow-dried my hair and am about to get dressed and paint my face. I also shot a pic of Samson. No, that’s not poop in front of him, it’s a treat that had been sitting there for 10 minutes and he wouldn’t even touch it (maybe because it looks like poop?). See, as part of our routine, I give Samson a milk bone before I jump in to the shower. This morning I thought I’d mix it up and give him a treat from Three Dog Bakery, cuz I’m fancy like that. I figured he’d jump for joy! But instead he snubbed it. Notice how he’s looking away as if to say, “Pashaw…is this what you have to offer me today? Really? Come on lady, you can do better than that.”

8:00 a.m. – Arriving at work

It’s a lovely building isn’t it? Very inspiring to walk in to every day. Also note that it was FREEZING cold that day so it was a big sacrifice to roll my window down for the 10 seconds that it took me to take this pic. Nothin’ but love for ya.

9:00 a.m. – Dialing in to a conference call

The first of many meetings. Notice that I have 2 phones on my desk. An old crappy one (that I’m dialing) and a new IP phone. Those have both been sitting there since I started and I’ve had to use the old one because no one knows how to set up the new one. Brilliant! But the IP phone does make for a good paperweight.

10:00 a.m. – Checking the drips

It was at this point in the day that Bubbles and I decided to check on the leaks still coming from the ceiling. They were supposed to have been fixed last Friday morning but that never happened. I’m guessing Facilities thought that the cold temps would freeze the ice back up and stop the leaks. They thought wrong. So….this one has been dripping down in to The Brit’s cube for 5 days now and has left a nice stain on the wall. Stay classy Annex!

11:00 a.m. – Another conference call

Time for another meeting. My work day is really exciting isn’t it? Don’t you wish you had my work life? Well, some of you do and I’m sure many of you can relate to days filled with meetings and documents and more meetings to talk about those documents. But, it pays the bills so I shan’t complain…too much.

12:00 p.m. – Lunch!!

The gang decided to go out for lunch because it was the birthday of one of the Indians. The original plan was to go to a local BBQ joint but when we pulled in to the parking lot, we found that it was shut down. So, our second choice was Mexican (it was yummy too. I have 2 words for you – white cheddar cheese sauce. ‘Nuf said.).

The funny part of the story though has to do with the journey there and back. See, Bubbles offered to drive us in the rental car, which was a Chevy Cruze, because it had a remote start and heated seats. It’s a nice little car, with the operative word being “little”. Bob is not a small man. I had called shotgun, so Bob and the Indian climbed in the back. Well, the Indian climbed in. Bob had to use some of his Marine training combined with a few yoga moves and a little bit of butter to squeeze his way in back there. As he put it, he looked like Grape Ape. On the ride home, I graciously offered him shotgun. He proceeded to put the front seat all the way back which meant I was conjuring up my own yoga poses and ended up sitting with my knees up under my chin. Even with as much leg room as he now had, he had to squeeze in and was sitting with his head cocked to the side because it was butted up against the ceiling. We almost had to call in the Jaws of Life to get him out of there when we got back to the mall.

1:00 p.m. – Guess what – another meeting!

Stop the excitement already!!

This meeting was an elicitation session so we were all in the conference room with our laptops. See that yellow mess of cables? Yeah, that’s where the fun really comes in. Some of them are “live” and some are not. The goal is to find one that’s working so you can have internet access. Wireless? That’s like so next Century. We’ll have robots here first! Scooter will be president before the Annex has wireless!

2:00 p.m. – Birthday Cake!

We wanted to show the Indian a proper American birthday celebration so Bubbles brought in a cake for him. It was yummy. We didn’t sing though because, well, that would have been traumatizing for everyone involved. No candles because it’s a fire hazard (course, we would have had plenty of water to douse it with given the 3 trashcans nearly full of leaky ceiling water)! So it wasn’t a full and complete American birthday celebration but he got the idea. My piece of cake was gone exactly 2.5 minutes after this picture was taken. Take no prisoners!

3:00 p.m. – Excel Hell

(notice the meeting invite on my screen is a reminder to take a photo for that hour.)

Note I’ve been workin’ on some spreadsheets…all the live long day! I’ve been workin’ on some spreadsheets just to pass the time away! Note Ok, I can’t really complain because Barry has taken on the bulk of the load when it comes to managing spreadsheets for this project. The one I’m working on here is tiny compared to his monster – 400+ rows, 50 + columns and 7 tabs. It’s massive.

Speaking of Barry, Bob noticed that he was wearing multiple shirts. He was going to ask him about it at lunch but Barry was unable to join us. So Bubbles and I asked him about it later. Here’s how it shook out:

Bubbles: Hey Bob wants to know why you’re wearing 4 shirts today.
Barry [with a southern accent and oozing charm]: I’m not wearing 4 shirts.
Me: Um, yes you are.
Barry: No, I’m not, it’s only 3. See, a t-shirt, a polo shirt, a button up shirt and a sweater. Oh crap, it is 4!
Bubbles: Told ya.
Barry: Well I was cold this morning so I kept putting on more layers!
Me: Maybe tomorrow you should shoot for 5 layers. Throw a sweater vest over that and you’ll be set!
Bubbles: Also, why do you wear 2 scarves?
Barry: I do? Well, I don’t know, I just do!

4:00 p.m. – Excel Hell, continued

By now I have transitioned into working on the “massive monster mother of all spreadsheets” spreadsheet. But at least it has pretty colors. I am frantically trying to finish up my work because I still needed to pack up my desk and try and get outta there by 5.

Once I had everything packed up, and loaded in my car it was time to say goodbye. I had Bubbles take this extra picture of me at my desk, as sort of a final way to remember my life in the Annex.

5:00 p.m. – So long suckers!

And then I was out the door! These are the doors to ~~my freedom~~ the outside. Notice that pretty blue haze of the outside world that is in stark contrast to the dreariness of the mall? Yeah. That about sums it up.

6:00 p.m. – Making dinner

This is a chicken and broccoli braid from one of my Pampered Chef books. It turned out de-lish. This pic was taken prior to cooking so looks a bit weird (and a little bit like the spine of some huge animal) but trust me, it turned out good.

7:00 p.m. – Eating with Munchkin

This is the face I get to see every night when I eat dinner. Doesn’t get much better than that. Notice too that her tray is licked clean which just goes to show how good my dinner was!

8:00 p.m. – TTM Updates

After dinner, I had fun playing with Munchkin and then it was time for her to go to bed. By 8:00 I was at my desk writing up a TTM post for the day before letting myself chill and veg. That’s day’s post was on some of the updates I’ve made to the house but WordPress was giving me issues so it took longer than I anticipated. CJ was itching to get on the computer but he patiently waited and watched “Celebrity Rehab” while I worked.

9:00 p.m. – Chillin’

Finally getting some time to sit and relax. I was starting to feel a sinus infection coming on (it’s here full force now) so I just wanted to snuggle under my Steelers blanket and let my mind go numb in front of the tube. Which is exactly what I did. I was watching “The Cape” that I had DVRed Sunday night. I didn’t really like it and probably won’t watch again.

10:00 p.m. – Nightie night!

By 10:00 I was asleep so I cheated and snapped this right as I laid down and turned the lights off. I was down for the count!

So there you have it – a snapshot of my life and a typical day at work. I really, really tried to find Scooter so I could take a picture of or with him but alas, he was no where to be found. Go figure that when I actually want to see him, he’s gone.

And with that, The Annexed series draws to a close. I have received a lot of feedback on how much you all like this series so it makes me sad to end it. I will try really hard to find something to replace it with though. Perhaps I can find little gems from the West Office to write about. Who knows. In any event, thanks for following and I hope you continue to do so!

Consider yourself Annexed!!