Lying on the couch tonight I’m writing here while the hubs intently focuses on WandaVision. Count me out on that one as I’m not really into Marvel for the most part. My style ranges from Schitts Creek to Walking Dead, Breaking Bad to Game of Thrones, and Dexter to House of Cards. Right now we subscribe to YouTube TV, Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney +. The Office still ranks as one of my top favorite shows. Other old loves from back in the day (in no particular order) – Law and Order, Parenthood, House, Chuck, The Magicians, Dead Like Me, Alias, Orange is the New Black, early Grey’s Anatomy, and I of course have forgotten many, many more.

My youngest daughter and I snuggle up together during episodes of Nailed It and enjoy laughing at the hideous examples of baking gone wrong. I’m behind on Stranger Things (in season 3 maybe?) because after my kids refused to sleep one night from watching it, I stopped. Interestingly enough, I caught the two oldest continuing on with the series sans me… like WTF. They claim during daylight hours the show doesn’t scare them as much. Now I’m slowly playing catch up!

Quite infrequently does my taste coincide with my husband’s, meaning I often browse Facebook while he puts on something in which I’m not at all interested. We try and try again to find a happy medium. Looking for any help or direction so comment away… please and thank you!

Personally, I don’t find the lottery, or gambling in general, as idiotic as some people believe it is. Because of my family I grew up loving bingo and scratch offs. Even those pull tab tickets brought excitement when we attended local fairs. These days I can’t even remember how many times I’ve traveled to Vegas… at least once, sometimes twice over the last seven years or so. For awhile a work conference took me there, so free flights, meals, and a room for me. Saved all of my money for blackjack and slot machines. 99.9% of the time I lost my budgeted allotment or more, but I thoroughly enjoyed all the interesting people I met at the tables as well as the fascinating mini win displays at the Willy Wonka, Wheel of Fortune, and Ghostbusters games.

Now back to lottery tickets in particular… This evening my hubby drove me to the local convenient store so I could buy numbers for tonight’s Mega Millions and tomorrow’s Powerball drawings. Seems silly to spend hard earned dollars on a 1 in over 300 million chance of scoring a jackpot, right? But every time I purchase them, a light, fun family (and sometimes friends) conversation is spurred. What would we do with all of that money?! One kid wants a “mansion,” another hopes for a vacation home on the beach somewhere, and the other wants to visit Legoland a whole bunch more. My husband and I would choose to renovate our current house, buy up the neighbor’s house, and let my sis and brother-in-law move in there. My Mom’s dream – to open a public golf course that charges nothing and offers free lessons to those who could not normally afford to play. I’d travel more, certainly blog more, and likely work only as a volunteer for non-profits. My husband would still keep a full-time job. Weirdo. Every time we talk our ideas become even more hilarious… like hiring Oscar Mercado as a cabana boy or opening an American Girl doll museum.

So when I hand the clerk those $10 or $20 bills, I’m buying the feeling of hope for that slight chance of hitting it big. Schrödinger’s tickets, I like to call them. We have not yet won nor lost since the drawing hasn’t happened. We choose to stay positive and become mesmerized by all that could be, if we won that dang lottery.

Yes today I’m rooting for the Cleveland Browns, mainly because they’re my hometown team. Also, I’m sitting with several die hard fans – my Mom, son, sister, and brother-in-law. Long ago my crazy friend and I bought season tickets in the Club section. Boy did they STINK that year (2005-2006). Often we sat inside at the full service bar for the warmth.

Over time, just to appease my now husband, I started to watch Pittsburgh Steelers games and even cheer a little for them. How in the world could I abandon my upbringing and switch allegiance to a bitter rival? In my closet hangs two black and gold jerseys, and I wore them to Three Rivers Stadium a few times. Ah what we do for love…

Last week during the match up between Baker Mayfield and Ben Roethlisberger, I secretly hoped the Browns would prevail. Even participated in a family group text where we exclaimed, “YEY!” for each of the first four touchdowns in that record-breaking first quarter. In my family room lots of shouting and “WOO HOOs” rang through the air. Football brings us together regardless of who we are backing… what can I say? (Just as long as no one says, “Go R*vens.”)

This afternoon my youngest daughter and I eagerly swooped down to the basement for some time with our American Girl doll collection. Today she chose Kit and Molly as the student and teacher for school time. Kit got an A+ on her Math test, plucked the violin (while Molly played the flute) during Music class, read about animal needs in Science, and looked at an old map of the United States for Geography. After school, Kit and her friend Blaire started to dress up for the prom… but a spider on the wall abruptly ended the fun. We’ll be back there again soon with our imaginations at the ready.

My obsession with American Girl dolls began in my younger years as I read all of the historical girls published books. Every month or so a catalog would be delivered in the mail. I circled so many items but knew our family couldn’t afford those prices for simple playthings. At 37 years old I perused E-Bay one day and found Samantha and huge set of her clothes, books, and furniture. Not so secretly I knew this purchase would open the floodgates for me, making up for all those years I’ve longed to own these dolls. My two young daughters have been used as justification for building a vast collection.

First off, I navigated to the best websites for information about the different dolls and sets.

http://www.agplaythings.com

https://americangirl.fandom.com/wiki/American_Girl_Wiki

I printed every page with descriptions and pictures of the girls and their accessories. That binder I made became a perfect checklist to satisfy my addictive personality. Many nights were spent combing E-Bay and Facebook purge posts in all the groups I joined. Naturally I sought to complete Samantha and her best friend Nelly’s collections first because I loved their story most. I’m somewhat embarrassed at the sheer number of dollars I have invested in these toys. But, my dream idea centers around an even more user-friendly online space with pics of each tiny piece tagged with traits such as color, type of object, who it belongs to, etc. The existing wiki offers a search function but it’s not to my standards. Also, the site shows generic stock pictures and not individual pieces within each outfit or set. Thankfully my husband spins up webpages and databases like a wizard. Stay tuned as I start this major project soon!

This morning started out rough from a work standpoint. Over the weekend our project team made “under the hood” adjustments to both our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system Salesforce and our ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system NetSuite. Since mid-September we finalized development scope, documented use cases, tested, and prepared for the impact of these adjustments to data flow and processes. A few users from key business stakeholder groups were involved along the way, so we thought we were ready…

Even after countless hours spent analyzing and testing effects of the changes on end users, we did not anticipate everything that could cause hiccups when we opened for business today. In fact, I personally take responsibility for not preparing specific training materials for a subset of users. Confusion on how to use other new functionality also abounded. Don’t take for granted the importance of change management! After being in the weeds of a project, it is easy to make assumptions about how end users will react when go-live day actually comes.

Upon reflection, here are my thoughts on how I’d structure rollouts going forward,

• Draw out a stakeholder matrix and constantly refer to it as the use case scenarios are drawn up.
• Exhaustively prepare screenshots, walk throughs, and any other materials which can be used for “train the trainer” and end users.
• Conduct “train the trainer” with a representative from all system end user stakeholders.
• Officially schedule end user training as part of the project plan.
• Try not to implement new functionality or changes to processes during the time of year most people take days off of work. Yes, a clean cutoff is attractive, but change management will take the hit.

Every day on the job will provide great learning experiences, and we can all hope to improve our interactions as time passes. Just remember to look back occasionally as you move forward.