Shadow presented himself as a kitten at our front door, inspected the residence, used the litter box, went to sleep in the food bowl. That got him a home. I figure the universe will present me my next companion in a similar way.

-t that's really sweet! We haven't decided on colors for the nursery yet and probably won't until we find out the sex of the baby. But maybe yellow and white? Also, I'm highly allergic to wool.

I genuinely don't know how to tell if I'm improving at my job or not. I'm getting less negative feedback (pointing out things I missed, using wrong style, etc.), but also no positive feedback (like "good job on this one," etc.).

My boss is ridiculously, insanely busy, so I feel like asking her if she's seeing improvement is an imposition on her time and like I'm being a baby who needs my hand held. But I seriously don't know if I'm improving or just fucking up less than I used to, which is not so much "improvement" as it is "you are less of a blight on this company than you used to be."

I was in the Humane Society's cat room just to see what was available, thinking I'd make a couple trips before deciding who I'd adopt. One side of the room had cages set into the wall for cats who were in the adoptions process or needed to be isolated from the room. I opened Alix's door to see who was in there (she didn't like being out with all the rest of the cats), and she poked her head out and licked the end of my nose. "I'm going home with YOU!"

I was not thinking I'd adopt a cat that night, so she had to wait in her carrier in the car while I stopped at Fred Meyer on the way home to buy cat stuff....

"Fucking up less" is pretty much exactly what improvement is.

It seems like, from out here totally uninvolved, you are very hard on yourself. Steph. I would think that including a note asking for confirmation that you are getting the hang of your job (more professionally phrased) along with something you are submitting to your boss would be okay.

Glad I asked, sj! No wool.

Steph, they still send you work. That's the biggest clue that you're doing something right, especially as a freelancer. Also, what -t said.

It seems like, from out here totally uninvolved, you are very hard on yourself. Steph.

I am, yeah. But I also don't have any kind of metric to tell if I'm improving, beyond "fucks up less." I guess that's improvement.

If I had been doing this for years and still needed reassuring, that would be nuts. But it's only been 6 months, and I just can't tell if I'm making any progress at all, or if they're just keeping me around because it's more work to train someone new than it is to keep pointing out that I forgot to ask the author about XYZ.

It's only been 6 months and you are getting fewer corrections. That's good. That's progress.

I do think it's okay to explicitly ask for positive feedback (although maybe not in those terms)

I am all for metrics for performance, by the way. Well, in theory I think they are great. In practice they rarely actually measure performance, so I have some ambivalence.

Do you have the same errors on every thing you do? Or is it new situations that come up that you have to learn how to handle?

Agree with Amy on that one!

When I made the decision that I was ready to commit to a dog (and all the lifestyle changes that resulted from that) I went around to the humane society and area shelters, but didn't find a dog that worked for my situation. I ended up using petfinder, which is a great resource heavily trafficked by rescue/shelter organizations. I had been looking for an adult female dog, but the few times I tried going forward with an adoption things fell through. (I couldn't believe how hard it was to adopt in Portland! It is serious business.)

I was kind of poking around when I saw a new posting for a young female pup, and figured it wouldn't hurt to meet. I was actually at the NCAA regional tournament when I was trying to arrange a visit with her foster mother! I took my older male British lab Tuey, and within an hour I had this absurdly cute bundle of 5 month old puppy wiggling in my lap and teasing my older guy. It was magical.