My life is starting to resemble the movie “Groundhog Day”. Get up at 6:20, get the first cup of coffee, do hair and makeup, sit on back deck drinking coffee and reading the paper (favorite part of the day despite a pitiful local paper), eat fruit and cereal, get dressed, drive to work while listening to Woody and Cindy and trying to win prizes by calling into the radio station (won $20 in pizza last week) – get to work!
Typical workday this time of year consists of endless budget meetings where I take notes on my laptop and try to extract $ from department heads and VPs, get out of meetings, answer email and phone calls, work through lunch (got away today for Rotary – hooray!), more work, more meetings, Diet Dr. Pepper from cafeteria around 2:00, more work, more meetings, budget bottom line is a roller coaster, stop answering phone when everyone else leaves around 5:00 – finally finish by 7:00. Home – leftovers, eat out or Weight Watchers frozen dinner, take dog for walk, play Sukoku on computer, shower, read, bedtime – start all over again! Hope I didn’t bore you by just reading this crap!
However, it’s not all bad – my job is challenging and despite some tough weeks in the summer it’s really rewarding. I have the respect of my boss who is the COO and I have a lot of autonomy. What I don’t have in the summer is a life. But in just 7 weeks the budget goes to our board of directors and life goes back to a more manageable pace. Whew!
But – tomorrow is Friday – there’s an excellent possibility that I’ll leave work around 5:00 and I think I’ve turned the corner on the long hours. Saturday is predicted to be sunny and hot and a 50-mile bike ride in on the docket with my neighbor. Sunday our son-in-law Len and grandson Alex arrive for a visit and next week daughter Stacey will join them. I learned long ago to count my blessings and when I do, I count my family first.
Speaking of – Happy Anniversary to daughter Ralph and her husband Blair who are celebrating #10 today. It was a beautiful August day when they tied the knot and best of all 1 + 1 = 4 since they have 2 gorgeous daughters. They have accomplished a lot in 10 years – 4 different addresses, 2 more college degrees between them, new careers (yes, being a stay-at-home mom counts as a career) and as of yesterday, Blair has a new orthodontic office in Des Moines. They are blessed and so am I.
I tried to read the first two paragraphs but feel asleep – kidding!!! I sure as hell couldn’t do your job. Then again, I don’t think you could do mine. When are you going to retire and end all this work nonsense?
Looking forward to seeing you next Sunday. I guess the only way we can see you is for people to come in from out of town and force you to have a cookout!