six days
Has it really only been six days since my last post? It feels sooo much longer. (Which I guess is better than the reverse that usually happens, where I feel like I just posted yesterday and it's actually been a month.)
Friday was a busy day at the office again. I was feeling yuckier as the day went on. Still had some lack of sleep issues Thursday night, although not as bad as the previous couple of nights. But the head-cold just strengthened as the day went on. We had meetings and I had content to write, so I muddled through. The end of the day was somewhat comical. With the re-arranging of cubicles that happened while we were on break, the Instructor Bullpen is now an amazingly loud place when the six of us who reside there are all present at the same time. Marc and Rosie, the senior instructors, now have private offices up the hall. Joel has moved from being an instructor to content development/oversight and now works in a different department. Richard, Kathleen and Won, the three Newbies, are in those three cubicles. It used to be that Regan, Ross and I ("The Three Stooges") were the loudest, most rambunctious, feeding off of each others' energy. Won and Richard make us look like the shy quiet kids at the back of the room. Seriously. By 4:45, I was really surprised our company president hadn't come down the hall to tell us all the shut the hell up. I know the IT department closed their doors to cut down on our noise.
Then again, maybe we weren't as loud as it felt to me, trying to finish up a document and fighting the headcold.
Dinner was indeed with the Witts and Sauchellis. I suspect this may become our traditional weekly visit when I'm home, at least for as long as the kids don't have sports on Friday and new episodes of Merlin are airing. Dinner was great as always. We watched the Christmas episode of Doctor Who and then realized Merlin didn't come on til 10, so Kat took her little ones home (they were over-tired) and the Witt kids were bundled off to bed. Scott tried his best to watch the episode with Margaret and I but just got tired. I'm going to try to do the kind of episode-review posts I used to do, so I'll hold off on further thoughts for the nonce.
By the time I got home Friday night, though, it was obvious this head-cold wasn't going away. So I took cold meds, and after puttering on the internet for an hour or so, I headed to bed. And slept straight through til about 1pm, woke up, had some water and more cold meds, and went back to sleep. I slept intermittently til 10pm. Finally was hungry, so I ate and puttered on the internet again, feeling listless. Back to sleep around 1am, then awake around 1pm Sunday to pack for my business trip.
Thankfully, I wasn't flying anywhere on Sunday, just driving to Stratford CT to do a two-day environmental regulations overview for a customer. I had already planned to detour out to Wallingford for visit my friend Peggy and her son Max in their new house, so despite not feeling 100% I stuck to the plan. Good thing I did -- there's no way I'd have been visiting on Monday or Tues night the way I was feeling. Dinner with Peggy and Max was great as always. Peggy has always amazed me with her strength and calm; adopting Max has been a journey for her and the difference I see in him in just the year I've known him tells me what a fantastic mother she is. I wish I could have had more time with them, but I was definitely not wanting to contaminate the house.
By the end of the teaching day on Monday, I was hyper-congested again and had no voice and a very raw throat. I found a pharmacy and a Subway. Bought lots more cold meds (cough drops, nasal spray, Theraflu liquid) and a sandwich. Back to the hotel. Showered, dinner, caught up on some internet stuff that didn't require much brain power (hence, no interview post this week yet) and was in bed and attempting to sleep by 8pm. Yes, I even bypassed watching the first new episode of Castle since before the holidays.
Taught all day Tuesday. Started out rocky, and bless this group of professionals, they stayed involved and engaged despite my frequent nose-blowing and coughing and stopping to sip honeyed tea. Headed home immediately after the class, figuring I'd get stuck in rush hour traffic somewhere along the way but at least I'd get home in time for dinner and then Glee.
Well, sort of. I discovered an odd quirk to this car my cousins sold me, that they had forgotten to warn me about. Apparently, the engine temperature gauge occasionally likes to spike to HOT for no reason, and if you bang on the dashboard right above, it drops to normal again. So if you're not aware of this, you THINK the engine is overheating but it really isn't. And at 5pm on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut ... that's not the time to think your car is overheating. Especially in a stretch where you can't seem to find a gas-station.
The upside was that by the time I found out about the glitch and was back on the road, I managed to avoid the worst of the rush-hour traffic on 80 heading west. That was nice. And I did make it home before 8pm, but Glee was a re-run.
Today got off to a rough start too. I'm much less congested, but I also set my alarm for the wrong 9 (pm, instead of am) and thus blew yet another appointment with the headache specialist I've been trying to see for a month now. So we're trying again next Weds. So here I sit with a full afternoon ahead of me -- and I'm determined to be productive. I'm going to write up the leftover book reviews from 2011 first, and we'll see how long that takes. Other goals are to get my interview for the week posted and get some new interview emails sent out so I don't lose the lead-time I've got.
Friday was a busy day at the office again. I was feeling yuckier as the day went on. Still had some lack of sleep issues Thursday night, although not as bad as the previous couple of nights. But the head-cold just strengthened as the day went on. We had meetings and I had content to write, so I muddled through. The end of the day was somewhat comical. With the re-arranging of cubicles that happened while we were on break, the Instructor Bullpen is now an amazingly loud place when the six of us who reside there are all present at the same time. Marc and Rosie, the senior instructors, now have private offices up the hall. Joel has moved from being an instructor to content development/oversight and now works in a different department. Richard, Kathleen and Won, the three Newbies, are in those three cubicles. It used to be that Regan, Ross and I ("The Three Stooges") were the loudest, most rambunctious, feeding off of each others' energy. Won and Richard make us look like the shy quiet kids at the back of the room. Seriously. By 4:45, I was really surprised our company president hadn't come down the hall to tell us all the shut the hell up. I know the IT department closed their doors to cut down on our noise.
Then again, maybe we weren't as loud as it felt to me, trying to finish up a document and fighting the headcold.
Dinner was indeed with the Witts and Sauchellis. I suspect this may become our traditional weekly visit when I'm home, at least for as long as the kids don't have sports on Friday and new episodes of Merlin are airing. Dinner was great as always. We watched the Christmas episode of Doctor Who and then realized Merlin didn't come on til 10, so Kat took her little ones home (they were over-tired) and the Witt kids were bundled off to bed. Scott tried his best to watch the episode with Margaret and I but just got tired. I'm going to try to do the kind of episode-review posts I used to do, so I'll hold off on further thoughts for the nonce.
By the time I got home Friday night, though, it was obvious this head-cold wasn't going away. So I took cold meds, and after puttering on the internet for an hour or so, I headed to bed. And slept straight through til about 1pm, woke up, had some water and more cold meds, and went back to sleep. I slept intermittently til 10pm. Finally was hungry, so I ate and puttered on the internet again, feeling listless. Back to sleep around 1am, then awake around 1pm Sunday to pack for my business trip.
Thankfully, I wasn't flying anywhere on Sunday, just driving to Stratford CT to do a two-day environmental regulations overview for a customer. I had already planned to detour out to Wallingford for visit my friend Peggy and her son Max in their new house, so despite not feeling 100% I stuck to the plan. Good thing I did -- there's no way I'd have been visiting on Monday or Tues night the way I was feeling. Dinner with Peggy and Max was great as always. Peggy has always amazed me with her strength and calm; adopting Max has been a journey for her and the difference I see in him in just the year I've known him tells me what a fantastic mother she is. I wish I could have had more time with them, but I was definitely not wanting to contaminate the house.
By the end of the teaching day on Monday, I was hyper-congested again and had no voice and a very raw throat. I found a pharmacy and a Subway. Bought lots more cold meds (cough drops, nasal spray, Theraflu liquid) and a sandwich. Back to the hotel. Showered, dinner, caught up on some internet stuff that didn't require much brain power (hence, no interview post this week yet) and was in bed and attempting to sleep by 8pm. Yes, I even bypassed watching the first new episode of Castle since before the holidays.
Taught all day Tuesday. Started out rocky, and bless this group of professionals, they stayed involved and engaged despite my frequent nose-blowing and coughing and stopping to sip honeyed tea. Headed home immediately after the class, figuring I'd get stuck in rush hour traffic somewhere along the way but at least I'd get home in time for dinner and then Glee.
Well, sort of. I discovered an odd quirk to this car my cousins sold me, that they had forgotten to warn me about. Apparently, the engine temperature gauge occasionally likes to spike to HOT for no reason, and if you bang on the dashboard right above, it drops to normal again. So if you're not aware of this, you THINK the engine is overheating but it really isn't. And at 5pm on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut ... that's not the time to think your car is overheating. Especially in a stretch where you can't seem to find a gas-station.
The upside was that by the time I found out about the glitch and was back on the road, I managed to avoid the worst of the rush-hour traffic on 80 heading west. That was nice. And I did make it home before 8pm, but Glee was a re-run.
Today got off to a rough start too. I'm much less congested, but I also set my alarm for the wrong 9 (pm, instead of am) and thus blew yet another appointment with the headache specialist I've been trying to see for a month now. So we're trying again next Weds. So here I sit with a full afternoon ahead of me -- and I'm determined to be productive. I'm going to write up the leftover book reviews from 2011 first, and we'll see how long that takes. Other goals are to get my interview for the week posted and get some new interview emails sent out so I don't lose the lead-time I've got.