Just Breathe...

No, my plane didn't crash. No, I did not walk home. And by the way, I flushed the fish!! I tried to do it humanely. I put a little salt in their bowls every day until they weren't moving much,, then flushed them. I hoped they were so salt-intoxicated that they wouldn't know what was going on...maybe I should have used whisky?

Anyway, sorry to all my loyal readers; my new job is great, just really really intense. I had no idea how crazy this ride would be! It's not that I want off or anything, it's just that I barely have time to do anything but train. Which is good. Training is good. It beats being thrown to the dogs (woops, docs) with a laptop and Palm pilot and a smile on my face....but holy moly, is it exhausting.

You may notice a few more spelling or punctuation errors: I'm writing on my new laptop and the keys are flat and weird and the "mouse" finger-thingy gets in my way and shoots my cursor off the page, picking buttons and popping up windows that I have never seen before. "Esc" is my new best friend!

So out of the last three weeks, I have been at home only one. I spent a week in southern CA, which was nice weather-wise. Beat the hell out of the -7 degrees I arrived home to! Then I was home a week putting my new life together: office, benefits, online training, forms, signatures, passwords(I think I have at least 12 separate ones now, argh!), etc. Add to that the fact that JeepMan now thinks that I can chauffeur him and the kids around (which I can, but...), and the fact that I do need to shower once a day and keep the house reasonably picked up. Suddenly the whole work-from-home thing looses a little of its luster.

Here's a synopsis of my week at home: unpack, laundry, shop for office stuff, set up office, chauffeur (repeat), dot my i's and cross my t's, navigate the abyss of benefits choices, lunch with hubby (repeat), what? I need a formal for this meeting?, try on 30 dresses, holy crap my plane leaves tomorrow, pack, and off to Orlando.

Which may be the home of Mickey Mouse but damned if I got to see him.

Yes, the weather was beautiful. Yes the hotel was lovely (Disney Grand Floridian). But let me just say that having my day planned for me from 6am to 10pm doesn't translate to relaxation. I learned a lot, ate a lot, drank waaay more than I am used to (which isn't much), spent 5 straight days in high heels (never again) and got much less sleep than I need to function. So when I got home what I really needed was 12 hours of straight sleep. What I got was a entire day at MIL's house for JM's birthday (37 - ha, he'll always be older than me).

Oh, and 9 inches of snow.

To be followed the next day by rain, thunderstorms, and HAIL. Yes, hail. In February. In the upper midwest. Crazy.

I have been working all this week on online modules, tests, conference calls (they always sounded cool, who knew they suck so bad?), and I have a site visit tomorrow.

Did I mention the 13 inches of snow we got today? Fortunately most of the 9 inches of snow we got Sunday was compacted by the rain and hail, so there aren't 22 inches on the ground. Still, my snowblower has gotten more use this 1 winter than it has gotten cumulatively over the last 5 winters. Lucky me, Jeep Man loves to snowblow. He doesn't complain at all. He even blew out the driveways and sidewalks of both of our neighbors across the street. They're both foreign and I assume from less snowy parts, considering they each own only 1 cheap plastic shovel. All us true midwesterners know plastic shovels are only for show. And maybe sandboxes.

So anyhow, I will truly try to spread the love from SUV mama and address my award sometime soon. I think "Make Time for Writing" will be one of my pieces of advice - hypocrisy at its best! And I will TRY to visit your blogs soon.

I have not abandoned writing, or you. I just need a little breathing room.

Namaste. Ohhhhhhmmmmmmm.......