Month: October 2021

Travel: Destinations in Film

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I’ve seen different folks going in and out of the neighbor’s house across the street for the past month or so. And right away I realized they are Airbnb-ing (hosting) their property. It’s not that I am stalking, but while parking my car, or doing landscape maintenance, I see different folks in and out, taxis and Ubers pulling up. A call is made in the driveway and definitely a code is shared and next thing you know, the garage door opens and these different individuals, men mostly, go inside. Days later a maid service comes in to clean up and then the family of 6 return home. Which gets me thinking, where do they go for those days while a stranger is in their home? I mean the children are of school age, all under ten going to a physical school instead of online? How does this family juggle such a lifestyle? So I decided to do a search on Airbnb and discovered there are countless homes around my block alone that host vacationers or …

Searching for That Silver Lining

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Apparently I had a smile on my face the other day that troubled my family members. It’s the sort of smile I produce when I am thinking and plotting and re-organizing priorities in my head. You see, recently I’ve been tossing around the idea of scaling back on work and finding a new career adventure which actually and truly makes me happy. Because of this back-and-forth, I’ve been buying novels with that very synopsis in play. Woman leaves life and moves somewhere. Woman finds new joy in life. Woman buys a cottage and transforms it. Woman learns life lessons and so on. I mean you get the picture. So I smile, with every purchase of these very novels which are going to become my inspiration to make that leap or ‘bounce’ from the unfulfilling and into a more simple and yet gratifying life. I’ve been caught with the very smile, when I stroll through a park or a quant neighborhood adoring all things nature, steadily and very colorfully readying for winter. It’s all part of …

If My Weeks were Summed Up In A Slide Deck…

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This has become a thing it seems for me…where on Fridays, I feel the need to recap…kind of sort of what I do at work with a slide deck of where things are. It almost feel like a series. Season 1, Episode 3 and so on. So with that said, here’s this weeks episode. After a not-so-unplugged time-off last week, I jumped right into my days, doing what we all need to do at our workplace. I pulled 12-18 hours days catching up and preparing for a Thursday morning presentation. I know I was running on fumes and adrenaline all mixed up into one. Because just as I felt myself crashing, I turned to some form of caffeine to get me going again. At one point at nearly 2:30 in the morning, I got into bed and turned off the lights, thinking I would get a few hours sleep. But ended up on my phone sending emails and instant messages to our teams spread across the world before their day ended and mine -on-the-clock- began. …

Beautiful Things

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On this Sunday morning I felt the need to inspire you… To seek nature and all it’s beauty To experience a gourmet coffee shop To discover an English Tudor or cottage style home in your neighborhood or beyond. To sit on a park bench along a lakeside and observe the ducks. I guarantee you will walk away feeling the most peaceful. To Consider a wall refresh in your formal dining room

It’s a Wrap…For The Week

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I scheduled some much needed time-off this past week…only to end up virtually attending a 2-3 hour meeting each day for work. Mostly external seminars that I could not simply decline or ask to be rescheduled. On day four, while attending virtual session number four on how to be the best version of yourself past the qualifications to be in current role, I realized there is really no 100pct unplugging from work, at least for some careers. Mine happens to be one of those roles-where it is very difficult to unplug. I did learn a lot in the self-betterment seminar, which I will share here in the coming week. After I have time to reflect and gather my thoughts. As for the hours in between the meetings, I did manage to reassess all things piled in my to-do list-mostly chores, to see if they are truly things I need to do or ones I want to do. And miraculously (wink) by the time Wednesday rolled around, the 20 or so to-dos dwindled down to only …

Happy Weekend and all…

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I love waking up to a message from our global team in the UK – wishing me a happy weekend. Funny how that works. 6a.m. in California while it is 2p.m. in the UK, where everyone-well at least for our company-is getting ready to unplug from all things work. Anyway, what are you up to this weekend? As I mentioned in my last post, I was going to chase Fall. But, due to the dry weather we are experiencing in California, the leaves are not turning color as beautifully as I had imagined in my head. At least in California. Not sure in other parts of the world. Although someone I work with in the east coast mentioned how green and plush all things were in his state and he wondered if winter was really around the corner… Lots happened this past week. Mostly binge-watched a Netflix mini-series and I have to say I am actually traumatized from being able to decode the underlying message in the series. Have you seen Midnight Mass? I can’t …

Friday Interesting Finds

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Sharing contents on a blog has become quite challenging these days in terms of seeing an interesting topic somewhere else and wanting to share in the joy here without copyright infringement nightmares. So I’ve been debating on shifting gears here at RS&S to bring to you the rawest of materials…but then I think. Don’t we have enough of that already? I mean the world is a different place since the pandemic and even the slightest difference in opinion is no longer tolerated the way it was once. So I keep treading gently here and there and so the topics of discussion are now far and too few. I do have to tell you though. I had a boss once, who being a decade+ older than me often chuckled at my way of thinking or being…he said I reminded him of how he was at one point in his life. He also told me I’d grow out of it. From social media contents he posts, I realize he has never grown out of his ways or …