Category: washington dc

My Thoughts on The Great Resignation

The pandemic and working from home has led to quite a revolution in the workforce.  People are realizing that life as we had been living it before the pandemic is not where it’s at.  Priorities have changed and this has led to people being fed up. People are feeling empowered to make changes.  People are realizing their worth, realizing what they want, and realizing that employment as we’ve known it is for the birds. And though I didn’t get it at first, I NOW GET IT!

Personally, I have had some realizations about work and life during this pandemic, and I cannot see going back to life as I knew it before this all happened. I feel like my life’s priorities do not line up with working the way I did before the pandemic.  And I feel like I just cannot see going back to the way things were.

People are realizing their worth, realizing what they want, and realizing that employment as we’ve known it is for the birds. And though I didn’t get it at first, I NOW GET IT!

I’m sure that along with the rest of the world, after two years of remote working, I now realize that going to an office every single day is for the birds. Don’t get me wrong, I know for some occupations, it’s required. I wouldn’t expect my dentist to virtually clean my teeth, no more than I’d expect my mechanic to virtually change my oil. I know for a lot of people, there was no such thing as working from home.

But for the millions of office workers and paper pushers like myself, working from home is what we did during the pandemic. Once upon a time, working 100% remotely once seemed like an impossibility–like…we really felt like there’s no way in earth we could fully operate without stepping foot into an office space.

What about our files and our print-outs and faxes and mail???

But obviously, we did it. And we did it darn well. And while doing it, we discovered a lot of things about what’s important in life and what’s not. Spending more time at home helping kids with school work easily outweighs devoting that same time to being in a car commuting. We’ve discovered hobbies and recipes, we’ve enhanced relationships and we’ve explored and vacationed more than normal–things that were at the very least made more difficult when we had a requirement to be physically present in an office.

I realize that I have it good when it comes to work.  I get paid very well, I have a lot of flexibility, before the pandemic, I did work three days from home, and when it comes to work-related stress, that really is quite low.  So, I have no plans to resign.

HOWEVER…there are some things I also have no interest in doing again. Ever. And I hope I can align my life up to these preferences in the near future.

So now that the return-to-work announcement seems imminent, I’m realizing that there are some things I haven’t missed and that I have no interest in returning to.

  • Spending 20 hours of my work week in a car fussing about my commute and crazy @ss drivers
  • Fussing over work outfits
  • Carrying around flat shoe and a work shoe (and a gym shoe if I plan to work out during lunch)
  • Mentally allocating hours and hours preparing for work and the associated logistics of getting to the office
  • Living my life around when traffic starts and ends
  • Spending money on just getting to, and being in, the office. (Gas, car wear and tear, meals out, coffee on the go, etc.)
  • Missing out on things because I can’t get there in time if I’m coming from work
  • Feeling like a race starts the moment I hit the door in the evenings (because things I’ve done during the workday during the pandemic, I’m unable to do if I’m in the office…such as running an errand that takes 10 minutes from your home but that’s not possible to do in a reasonable timeframe from the office, marinating chicken, doing laundry, prepping meals, going to a fitness class by my home that I can’t make it to in time from the office)
  • Attending meetings in person that could be an email, a phone call, Teams/Skype message, or a virtual meeting
  • Constantly being in a state of meal planning because I have to take lunch and breakfast to the office and then have an easy-to-make meal at home for dinner because I have to go to bed in two hours.
  • Going to bed two hours after I get home
  • Living off of convenient meals because there’s no time to cook and prep
  • Waking up before 8am. I literally cannot believe that I woke up at 6am and often didn’t start working until 9.  THREE HOURS wasted every single day.
  • Dealing with work drama.  So much of that disappears when you don’t have to deal with in-person foolishness.  I don’t see you, you don’t see me, and at the end of the day, I sign off and live my life. 
  • Not focusing on my side hustle and other interests because all of my free time and mental space is devoted to work things.
  • Spending money on clothing just to go to the office
  • Shoveling snow or dealing with inclement weather just to get to or from the office.
  • Awkward pot lucks
  • Paying for dry cleaning
  • The ability to zone out in the middle of the day which is not possible in the office because you always have to be “on”

This is just my starter list. There are so many more things I have no interest in dealing with once we are required to return to work. What have you not missed since being on full-time remote work? Anything on my list? What are your thoughts on the Great Resignation?

justamarylandgirlLeave a comment

Airbnb Journey: The Alexandria VA Duplex

After spending a month in North Carolina, my boyfriend and I needed to return to the DC area due to appointments and family events coming up. The search for a place in the DMV as we natives call it (DC/Maryland/Virginia area) that fit our requirements as well as our budget was quite difficult. The area can be pretty expensive, and we wanted to make sure we were within a good distance to our appointment locations.

After extensive searching, we booked a duplex in Alexandria, Virginia. Alexandria is a large city in Northern Virginia that borders the nation’s capital. Like most places, the neighborhoods can range from older and more established to new and recently developed.

As soon as we hit the reserve button, we immediately second guessed our decision. It was a new listing, but the owners had several reviews for other properties. So we weren’t concerned about them as hosts, but we realized we didn’t know much about the actual neighborhood, and we also realized we had not seen any pictures of the outside of the house. After our NC bungalow, the visual bar for our homes was set pretty high.

So of course, as soon as we received the address, we immediately did a google map search of the property. And that did not help our concerns. But what’s done is done, we had paid our money, and that would be our home for a month… unless we wanted to cancel and lose our money. Ummm no.

Unlike the first home, the check-in for the Alexandria duplex did not go smoothly. With it being a newly listed property, the owners were working on final touches in the home up until and beyond our check-in time. Our check-in time was delayed so we had to pass the time, which was hard to do when we were still in the midst of pandemic lock-down and stores are limiting entry. But fast forward a couple hours, and we checked into the home.

The home was located in a well-established aka older neighborhood as we suspected, and visually, the home was not as attractive as the NC bungalow. Once inside, the furniture was older, and there were some areas of the home that weren’t completely finished (ie., blue tape on the walls, a chandelier that the owner had to come back and finish hanging, dust that they probably would have swiffered if they had a little extra time, etc.). But…there was a homely charm about the home and I was determined to make the best of it.

THE NOT SO GREAT:

I really gave the owners the benefit of the doubt–sometimes first rentings just don’t go as planned. I know they wanted to have a guidebook prepared, and I’m sure they wanted the space to be Airbnb perfect. Unfortunately it didn’t happen that way, and by the time we arrived and were able to check in, we just wanted to get unpacked and settled. The moment for the cute arrival had passed, and it just wasn’t going to happen.

Some of the things that made the stay less than perfect included the home not having central heating, so with it being the middle of winter, it was quite drafty sometimes. There wasn’t a ton of space for our clothes, so it felt like we were always shuffling things around just to get things from our luggage. There was only one bathroom, and after having two, it was difficult to adjust to one…though we did it, and it was fine. There was only one television in the house and that wasn’t ideal.

THE GOOD:

There were a lot of great things about the home and the location. We were able to see family and friends since we were close to home, so that was really nice. We were able to both have cars so that helped with getting to our appointments and such with no coordination efforts. We took walks quite a bit even though it was snowing a lot of the time, so we were able to get out of the house and get fresh air. The home had a dedicated workspace and multiple rooms to spread out, which we cannot say about some of the other places we’ve stayed. The home had a lot of kitchen amenities so I cooked quite a bit, which was really nice. I also stocked up on my craft supplies and started teaching myself ceramics, and there was enough space to spread out and craft. The home had this really cute loft area, so we liked escaping to that space to think or just have some alone time. It was also perfect when we had meetings and needed personal space for those. The home had some really cool decorative elements and pictures that I thought made such a nice touch. The neighborhood was so quiet, so we slept like babies. And speaking of sleep, the bedding was so comfortable, I had to message the host to ask about the sheets and pillow cases, and I ordered my own!

AT THE END OF THE DAY we were looking for peace, safety, and a space to work, and this home provided just that. We have been out of that home for about six months and I still have moments that I flash back or miss something about it. It really was a unique and cozy vibe, and sometimes you don’t find that in “perfect” homes, or homes that are staged immaculately. Though it wasn’t the prettiest house on the prettiest street, the hosts were awesome, the space was quiet, the home was safe, and I would absolutely stay there again.

Here are some of the cute decorative touches that I really feel made the space unique and cute.

What if something makes a bad first impression for you? How good are you at finding the good in situations? I felt like a month was a long time to not love the space we chose, so I really focused on what I loved about the home. And it turns out, this home actually had a lot to love!

justamarylandgirl2 Comments

$40 Nightstand Makeover in Four Steps

I recently moved a have been looking for just the right nightstands to go in my bedroom. I’ve seen a few that I liked, and I hemmed and hawed way too long, and now that we are in the middle of the COVID pandemic, store closures have brought my search to a semi-halt.

Of course I can still look around online, and I could do a delivery, but I like having options before making a furniture purchase. And quite honestly, I wasn’t in he mood to spend a lot of money. And I also like going into stores and getting good visuals of the things I’m interested in.

So when I stumbled across two nightstands for $30 on Facebook marketplace, I decided to go with an all-together less expensive, more creative option.

These tables weren’t exactly what I was looking for, but for the price, I could see the potential to turn my weekend quarantine hours into a project that would keep me busy while creating some furniture pieces that would suit my needs.

If my bedroom furniture was a different style, I would have used these well-kept pieces as-is. But I have more rustic contemporary feel going on in my bedroom and figure that these traditional furnishings may work better if they were repainted. I’ve seen a lot of furniture makeovers using matted blue, grey and black and thought that painting in one of those hues was more in my wheel house.

I perused around online and saw that I could do a pick-up order of some matte blue spraypaint from my local Walmart, so I went with that. All of the other materials that I used were things I had around my house leftover from various other projects, so the cost of this project wound up being $30 for the tables and about $7 for three cans of spray paint. Not bad!

Here are the materials I used:

  • Sanding block (I don’t know what the coarseness is because it was leftover from other projects)
  • Rust-Oleum Ultra Matte spraypaint in True Navy (3 cans)
  • Design Master 14 kt gold spraypaint (1 can leftover from other projects)
  • All purpose interior/exterior primer (leftover from other projects)
  • Paintbrush
  • Rags
  • Tarps

So here’s what I did:

1. Sanded the tables. After removing the hardware and the drawers, I used a sanding block and sanded the tables and drawer fronts. The tables had a glossy finish, and I knew I was going to need some texture for the paint to grab on to, so the sanding seemed like a good idea. After I sanded, I wiped them off with a wet rag to remove the dust, and let dry for a few minutes.

2. Primed the tables. I had some primer on hand from another project, and spread a layer on the tables. I didn’t use very much, so if you have some, use what you have. If not, maybe buy a small can or a bottle of spray primer. It may not even be needed if you are working with an unfinished, non-coated wood.

3. Sprayed the tables. I sprayed a thin coat of the navy spraypaint, let it dry about 20 minutes, then sprayed another coat. Once I sprayed the second coat, it needed 24-48 hours to fully fully completely dry.

4. Sprayed the hardware. These tables came with bronze hardware that was pretty well tarnished. If I didn’t have gold spraypaint on hand, I would have left them as is until I found replacement hardware. But…because I love having craft items laying around, I happened to have a can of gold spraypaint. So I gave these knobs a couple of quick coats and they came out perfectly.

I poked holes in the cardboard backing of an ink pen package (lol use what you have, right??) and I set the knobs in there for painting.

 

Once everything dried, I put the knobs into the drawers and that was that! I love how the project came out! And I love even more than I did it for under $40!

Have you done any cute makeovers that you want to share? Drop me a comment!

M signature

justamarylandgirl

My DC Staycation

DC trip 2 (4)I love a local getaway, or as some call it, a staycation.  I’m the queen of renting a hotel room, and acting like I’m on a legit vacation, regardless of whether I caught a plane or took a 20 minute car ride to get there.  Mentally escaping my day-to-day routine does not necessarily require taking leave from work or taking a flight.  So for Valentine’s day, my boyfriend and I decided to do an over-nighter in DC this past weekend.

I worked in DC for over 20 years, but that feels like a million years ago.  I’m no longer working in the nation’s capital, and now that I’m co-habitating, I live over an hour away from the city.  So going back to DC felt like a chance to revisit my old stomping grounds and it was also an opportunity to see what’s new since I was last there.

I don’t like to rip and run on vacation…or staycation.  My requirements for a trip or a staycation to be successful are pretty easily attainable.  I like to find a nice bar and a place to listen to music, I like a few nice photo opps, and maybe a cute store to buy a trinket.  If I can do those things, that’s a staycation well-done, in my world at least.

Staying one night in DC is hardly enough time to explore all of the new areas, such as the Wharf or Center City.  It really didn’t give us time to visit monuments or check out museums.  So what the heck did we do???

So here’s what I did.  I reserved a cute hotel for a rate that I thought was reasonable, packed my bags, and showed up there.  That’s about all the up-front planning that I did.  My thought was…there are bars and restaurants and cool spots throughout the whole city.  Once I get to the hotel, we can walk a few blocks and see what pulls us in.  Did that idea work?  Sorta.  Here’s how the overnighter played out.

Arrived at hotel:  Traffic from Baltimore County into DC made me realize that I don’t miss working in the city.  I chose the Kimpton Hotel Rouge in Dupont.  Kimpton hotels are always nice, and this one had saucy red lacquer and leather decor that felt very Valentine-y.  So I was super excited.  The rate was ok ($128), but there were so many additional fees that it irked me.  $19 taxes, $25 amenity fee, and $4 amenity fee tax…even the fees have their own taxes…what???  I was also concerned about the parking.  The hotel offered valet for $47—UGH! —plus $9 parking tax (are you kidding me!?!).  There were no garages in the near vicinity that proved to be a better deal.  And the only thing worse than DC street parking is DC street parking overnight.  The confusing signage just made my nerves bad.  So we opted for the valet.  This worked well convenience-wise,  but the price was steep and the tax on the steep price was just irritating.  This is definitely one part of being in the city that I do not miss at all.

Found a great restaurant:  After eenie-meenie-miney-moe to figure out which direction to head…we opted to walk towards Dupont Circle in search of a place for lunch.  After reading a few menus, we decided on a place called Magnolia Kitchen & Bar.  Affordable prices, a nice drink menu, and chic decor appealed to all of our senses.  Add an attentive staff, a perfect playlist and great food, and we loved this place.  I even pulled the manager aside and told him as much.

Stumbled into a beer garden:  OK, this was a complete accident.  While walking back to the hotel, I had to use the bathroom super, super bad.  I saw a bouncer and an open door and decided this was a good place to find a restroom.  We hiked a million stairs to the roof and found the PACKED Sauf Haus Bier Hall, where we were pretty certain we were the oldest people in the place.  After standing in line at the bathroom, we actually decided to stay for a drink.  Despite the fact that I HATE packed places and that it felt like I was at a frat house day party, we actually had a blast.  One drink transitioned into a dance…and then another drink and more dancing.  The dj was clearly more our age because I swear every song took me back to either high school or college.

Had free happy hour at the hotel:  We pulled ourselves out of the beer hall and headed back to the hotel for their free happy hour.  The selection wasn’t extensive, but we enjoyed a few glasses of free wine, and that was perfect for us.  They also had a hot cider with bourbon.  What more can you ask for for free??

Went to U Street for live music and dinner:  This is where the decision to wing it fell apart.  My coworker recommended Jojo DC, and raved about the food and live music, so this was one place I knew I would try on our trip.  And this was the one thing that didn’t quite pan out.  It didn’t occur to me to make a reservation, and since we went relatively early in the evening, I figured we’d have no issues with getting a table.  WRONG…so wrong.  It was standing room only at the bar, and none of the smart people who made reservations flaked.  So we never got a table and eventually left.

Had brunch before we left:  We did quite a bit of drinking on Saturday, so naturally the first thing on our minds on Sunday was food.  We decided to go to Commissary DC, which was only a few blocks away.  But I learned from my lesson the previous night, and this time I called to make a brunch reservation.  Good thing, because it was packed when we got there, and there was a long wait without a reservation.  The food was delicious!  The staff worked as a perfect team, and the ambiance was perfect and eclectic.

Even with the things that didn’t pan out, we had a great time.  Lots of laughs and dancing and snuggles…it made for a great V-day date and we’d probably do it the exact same way the next time.

tata for now -m- (2)

justamarylandgirl