The Ongoing Crisis

First let me say: It was a wonderful weekend. We had the Wisconsin branch of the family in town for Grandma's 10th annual posthumous birthday party. We got the Fort Atkinson brood on Saturday, with the three boy cousins Seeger, Liam, and Julian. Bella and Isaac were in play heaven... (more on that, of course), with a chili party over at cousin Heather's, and then the birthday BRUNCH on Sunday at the Lexington. This is usually a dinner, but schedules just seemed to dictate a brunch option, and it was wonderful, if for no other reason than there were no complex "who goes to bed where and with what stuffed animal" instructions for the babysitter - just 4 hours of playtime.

But there were some... stresses...

It all started Friday: My project out in Cleveland is for strategic planning and review, preparing for a major project launch. On Friday, they pushed the fast forward button: Our gears shifted into "MAKE THIS THING GO NOW", and I got a field promotion to the (interim) Project Director. So my nice every-other week gig has turned into a full time monster starting now. I actually could have worked all weekend on this, but I put my foot down and agreed to just work harder this week, because come on, the FAMILY was in town.

So I was good and stressed about this - big responsibility, lots of people asking for my time, PLUS feeling sad about having to get back on the road so quickly... and we're working hard to clean the house for the arrival of the cousins. Right after dinner, I take a good look at Bella and realize she's got Pink Eye. Goopy green gunk, red eyes. Bella and I jumped in my car to make it to the Target Clinic before they closed, and just three blocks along the way... my car decides it's time for its annual "throw off a tire" game. So I'm driving on the slippery snow with a tire shredding on the wheel, my daughter with pink eye in the back... (if you're keeping score at home, my car does this once a year - a tire just comes OFF of the alloy wheel on a very cold day)

I found a place to park, and Pamela picked us up with Isaac and we made it a family outing. Pamela and I got our H1N1 shots while we were at it.

Saturday was more scrambling to clean before the cousins came (the christmas decorations came down too), PLUS "gotta respond to this" emails about Cleveland... AND my client in New Jersey appears to have read her email from the past month all in one go, and sent me a strange snippy email that betrayed a complete lack of understanding of what I've been doing for her for the past month. I wisely decided NOT to reply to her, but the stress level went back up.

Now, with the late night at Target, Isaac was definitely low on sleep, so when the cousins did arrive, we got a fair amount of territorial posturing and screaming... he had to go to bed GOOD AND EARLY. Fortunately, he was a good bit more civilized on Sunday...

And the time with the cousins WAS wonderful, and I did my best not to let all of the madness of the previous days impact me, but I wound up just being exhausted.

By Sunday night, I was wound back up again, thinking of all I'd need to do this week (though I had successfully kept from doing any work during the weekend), and I excused myself to get an early bedtime (for my 7am flight - 4:45 wakeup). And spent most of the night staring at the ceiling feeling my heart pounding. Not much sleep, alas.

Driving to the airport, I noticed the car was riding a little rough, and pulling into the airport garage, I saw that the air suspension system had gone haywire, with the driver side riding low low low, and the passenger side riding high high high. So I needed to arrange for a tow truck on that (needs to wait until I return, however).

Fortunately, meetings and work actually went VERY WELL - for all of my worry, I actually got down to business pretty well. I even had a little skip in my step as I left the Jersey client for my car. As I crossed the street, a car stopped for me at the crosswalk (backing up 10 cars behind him). I gave him a hearty wave, and walked right into the ped xing market, knocking it into the street and following it right down.

My client saw it happen from her window and rushed down to make sure I was ok. Sure, she won't respond to emails or phone calls in a timely manner, but fall face first outside her OFFICE, and I get a response. ;) It seems overkill to mention that the hotel lost my reservation... but they did, but they had room for me so it was ok.

Anyway, I took it as a sign to cocoon for the evening. I did venture out for some pasta at the family-owned place near my hotel and had some fabulous gnocchi. There is good in this world.

So that was my crazy few days. I am feeling good about things, but boy, that world threw me some curves these past few days. I'm looking forward to some equilibrium again.