Today I worked from about 7:30 to 12:30 to get caught up. During that time, Lily took Basil on a 6+ mile walk. The kids were amazing entertaining themselves with making deviled eggs (Lydia), making chocolate chip cookies (Mary), building a fort and dressing in a colonial costume (Ammon), and getting beautified by Lydia (Clarissa).
Then Lily and I took the kids biking. First I spent time with Clarissa trying to help her learn. She gets very scared of trying to peddle and balance on her own, but we are making progress.
Then Lily stayed with Clarissa at the playground while I biked up the Provo river trail with the other kids. It was so fun!!
When we got home, we immediately got ready for a Luau for our friend Micah that his wife Betsy hosted for his birthday. It was so exciting to get to see them because they are some of our favorite people. We all got ready and jumped in the car and left and just before arriving, I asked Ammon a question. It was silent. “Was Ammon asleep?” we asked. Within seconds, we realized that Ammon was not in the car. We immediately turned around and turned to the Alexa and got a hold of him by dropping in. The poor kid was sobbing. We were shocked that we left him and so concerned until we contacted him, but everything turned out ok. He bounced right back and even told us that Basil comforted him. The party outside was so nice, and a great stress reliever after the events with Ammon. We learned about a new wilderness park in Provo, which we loved, loved talking with Betsy and Micah, and enjoy the fantastic weather. A great time was had by all.
I love the way Clarissa announces what she is going to do for her sliding in this video!
Also Lily has been struggling emotionally and feeling down on herself. We found an amazing new Netflix show called Magicians and loved escaping into it for a bit, and then we stayed up talking together. I love sharing life with my soul mate!
Today I dropped Clarissa, Ammon and Mary off at school (Lydia is still sick) and then worked from about 9 AM to midnight. It was a very intense day with a big fire-drill for one of our customers, as well as loads and loads of tasks I’m trying to catch up on as my team tries to turn things around. Lily was super supportive and did the entire kid routine until they went to bed while I was at work. It’s now Saturday morning and I’m still trying to dig out of my work pile! In the middle of all the work though, I did see Ammon’s school play which was a giant bright spot in my day. I was a bit distracted because I was right in the middle of working on the big fire-drill with a customer at work so I was on my phone some, but when it was Ammon’s turn to perform, I checked-in and could help, but to smile. He was dressed as Thomas Jefferson and so into the performance and danced and moved his body much more than anyone else (80% of kids didn’t move at all). He made the whole performance so fun to watch! Jamie, who runs the front desk at Arches, said Ammon was her favorite to watch. I love him!! Also major kudos for the teachers and students who all performed so well. It was a great and very enjoyable production.
I haven’t been sleeping much and I’ve been working extra hard at work trying to get back to a good spot, so I was incredibly tired today. That said, I did have a really nice time at the park pushing Ammon and Clarissa on the swing, chatting with Amy, and relaxing on a tree while Mary had tennis lessons with Emerson and Isabel (Lydia stayed home from school because she wasn’t feeling well). At one point, the kids saw how many of them they could get on the swing….
Lily worked on her book today and researched people’s experiences who are half white and half Filipino as she explores what character she wants to create for her book. Their experiences had a lot in common with Lily’s and a lot of what she learned about others’ experiences was very troubling in terms of the racism.
Lily and I both got good sleep this night, so that was great.
Today was very busy and stressful for both me and Lily, but it was a good day for sure.
In the evening, I went to see the Jazz game at Qualtrics with Lydia and Clarissa. The Jazz got completely blown out by Dallas, but I still had fun because I love watching basketball so much. Lydia told me she loves watching basketball too (to my delight!). Clarissa at a bunch of popcorn and sweets and then passed out in a chair.
On Sunday I rested, did the budget, did some other work and got organized in the morning. In the afternoon, I rested and cleaned the house with Lily preparatory to our hosting church for the Community of Christ.
The kids were playing all morning. Clarissa was on a computer game and the other kids were making a store of scary things.
Church was incredible! We had 19 adults and talked all about the nature of God with a focus on the divine feminine and Community of Christ’s decision to give women the priesthood (I think in the 1980s). After church, I talked to my pastor Tyler about becoming an official member, which I’m really excited to do. I just am going to take some courses to prepare myself.
In the evening, I shot hoops while the rest of the family watched “Turning Red” again. We love that movie! I’m so grateful Lily is so supportive of my love for the Community of Christ. She loves it too, but still I really feel her support.
Today, Lily and I took a super lazy morning. Then we cleaned the house with the kids and I took the kids to a trampoline park with our friend Todd Covington and his two kids, Casey and Chora. It was too crowded for my liking, and totally chaotic. There was almost no supervision and kids (often too young to know any better) were cutting in line, or going where a jumper was planning to land. It was nuts! But even still, it was such an incredibly good time. The kids were over the moon, and I had fun jumping and playing on the obstacles a little bit too. It was also so nice to talk to Todd who I haven’t caught up with in a while. Here are a couple cute videos of Clarissa:
At home, I made veggie burgers for everyone. I burned them, but everything was still delicious. We then had everyone shower and we watched “Turning Red” as a family. We all loved it!
After putting everyone down to bed, Lily and I walked again. This time, it was Lily who was really stressed, and she did most of the talking while I listened. She did a lot of research about travel in Mumbai, and that on top of everything else hitting her right now had her really overwhelmed. After walking we watched Madam Secretary together, which is so good!
Today was an incredibly stressful day for me. I woke up at 6 and went straight to work on a point of view document for a deal we are trying to win. I’m still feeling a lot of stress over trying to figure out when I should lean in and do something myself and when I should expect my team to do it. It’s a hard balance for me to find. I then worked a full day with several meetings and felt completely tapped out around 3, which was fine because my meetings were over at that point and I could then quietly and at my own pace (including some resting) work on my tasks.
Around 6:00, we met my boss’s boss, Lucas, and his wife Kim, who are both great friends of ours for dinner at Shoots. It was wonderful and pleasant to see them as always. I was having a great time, until I referenced how bad my team’s pipeline is right now and then Lucas started to discuss that with me. It was an incredibly stressful conversation for me, not because Lucas was being rough, but rather because I’m failing so badly right now in terms of pipeline and billings that it was just so stressful to discuss it with one of my superiors and strike the right balance between taking ownership for not being in a better spot without painting a picture that I haven’t been working hard, because I definitely have and I don’t want him to think otherwise. Our lack of pipeline has been seriously on my mind all week, and especially after Wednesday when my boss had a tough, but fair and measured conversation with me. My pipeline is the lightest in the entire region by far. It’s so hard to be back at the bottom! I’m know we will come out on top, but it is so stressful to be in a turn-around situation again, and the reality is despite all the distractions my reps were dealing with last quarter (including a hospitalization and a very disruptive death in the family), the fact is I wasn’t focused on pipeline the way I am now. I took my eye off the ball and its embarrassing that I’m still learning the lesson after 8 years in sales that I need to be tenaciously focused on driving on my team every single day. Layer onto that that it can’t be just me fired up about driving pipeline, but somehow I need to activate reps, who I don’t control, to do more, only through my influence, and it is a very very very tough challenge.
Then the conversation with Lucas pivoted and he said that the head of the Asia Pacific sales team wants a manager from headquarters to come train various offices and instill some of the tried-and-true processes and values from the AE team at headquarters. Lucas offered that opportunity to me!! I was so grateful for the opportunity. Lily and I just started talking about how to have international experiences for my resume (I want to lead a global sales organization one day) and for the kids exposure, but we just couldn’t figure out how to make it work in our lives right now. This 2-4 week tour right now seems like the best possible scenario considering everything in our lives right now. We were over the moon, and also very stressed. It was a lot to take in. We already planned a big France trip this year, and finances are already tight from me having a down sales year (and Qualtrics stock being down right now). Also, I’m in a turnaround mode with my team right now, so the thought of trying to have a successful year in spite of being gone another 2-4 weeks after Europe all sounds very stressful. Additionally, at home, Lily researched travel in Mumbai, and it sounds very daunting with children, especially since I’ll be training at work during the day. Still, despite all the obstacles, we settled on feeling super grateful for the opportunity knowing that it lines up exactly with our life goals right now with being as minimally disruptive as possible. It was a lot to think about!
After dinner, I was incredibly stressed. My stress was already high from the work day, and then the pipeline conversation with Lucas and the news about Asia was too much. I grabbed desert with Lily at waffle love (which was so fun) and then we put the kids down and watched TV, and then walked and walked and walked until 12:35. Lily just listened to me talk and talk and talk because I was so full of stress and anxiety. It was an incredibly touching thing for me and I felt so supported. I just needed to talk about all the pressure I was feeling at work, and she was really there for me. I’m completely in love with that woman.
I worked late today which was helpful because my team is in an incredibly dire pipeline situation and also I ended work early yesterday. I ended work early yesterday because while traveling on Spring Break, Lily and I talked about life dreams, and the biggest takeaway was that Lily wants to be a writer. We decided to block off 3-9 every Wednesday and yesterday was her first session. She LOVED writing, and I LOVED reading what she wrote. She is so well-read, so thoughtful, and her desires are so good. She’s also an insanely talented writer and I can’t wait to see what she creates!
At 6:30, I met up with Lily and the three youngest kids at Foothill elementary to watch the Foothill Ballroom team perform (Lydia was home sick). They were so good! We signed up Mary and Lydia for Foothill ballroom next year. On the way out we admired the wonderful art from Mary and Lydia.
Mary:
Lydia:
When we got home, we told Lydia that we enrolled her in Ballroom at Foothill for next year which means that she will not be at legacy dance. Lydia was super disappointing and sad. She sat on the stairs feeling very sad and Lily and I talked to her until she felt better about everything. She is so understanding to support the decision. Legacy is way too much money (and in my opinion way to stressful and logistically crazy), and Foothill gives so much of the same benefits for way less strain on money and sanity. Lydia, thank you for understanding!
