Tense

I despise being talked down to.

This morning I went to ask someone a question. He suggested a way I should do things. I explained how I wanted to plan my time. He disagreed.

Not only did he disagree, he acted like I was a complete moron for not being at all concerned with the things he's concerned with.

Do I even bother explaining that he's completely misinterpreting what I'm saying? Or do I just let him think he's right and move on with my day?

I opted not to waste my energy, but it was already too late. I felt immensely tense afterwards, and it affected my ability to work productively. I really, really, really hate it when this person makes assumptions. I need to figure out a positive way to deal with this when it happens again the future. Because I know it will.

Happy Home

The goldfinches built a nest in the tree outside my office window!!!

Around April, I started seeing a solitary, scrawny little male goldfinch hanging around this tree, occasionally landing right on my window sill for a rest. I'd see others come and go, usually pairs, using the tree branches as a stopping point on the way to someplace else. But this one little male kept coming back and lingering.

Then one day after a few weeks, I noticed he'd found a partner. I was so happy for him. :)

But then our organizational changes started happening at work, and I started spending more of my time in the group area. I missed seeing the goldfinches at my window. I always looked for them whenever I had a few minutes in my office, but they were never around.

Finally! Today I'm sitting at my desk for a few minutes, catching up on email, and I see the little male sitting on a branch. He hopped up to a higher branch and buried himself beneath the foliage. Where is he going? I wondered.

Then I realized he was handing off a beak-full of food to the female, who is in a tiny nest tucked under the leaves, presumably sitting on some eggs. Yay!!! I'm so excited that they're here to stay!

I'm just sad that I won't get to spend much time in my office to keep an eye on them. But how exciting will it be when there are babies!

I'm gonna try to get pictures and post them. They're pretty nestled in though, I don't know if I can capture it from my window.

Improvement

Today was a much better day.

It started off with a phone call from Joey where we both apologized for being jerks to each other. Turns out, work sucks for both of us. Joey was having a bad day too, and I was too wrapped up in my own world to listen. So was he. So this morning, we both took the time to listen. I felt so much better after talking with him.

Work was almost tolerable today. I got some real work done. No lecture this morning, and our only meeting was an informal one during lunch hour, with food paid for by the company. Can't complain about free food!

But because we stayed in and "worked" through lunch (albeit informal), I felt like I needed a break afterward. I retreated to my office for about 20 minutes and did some surfing. To my surprise, nobody popped in to bug me, and I was able to rejoin the group when I was ready.

I also got to work with someone from another department who I haven't had much contact with during the past year. I forgot how much I enjoy working with people outside my department. That's something I've really missed since the village idiot became our liaison to the rest of the company.

And for once, somebody showed me some new technology that actually looked well researched, easy to learn, and totally useful. It's been a long time since that happened. Usually the new stuff we bring in looks bright and shiny on the exterior, but under the hood it's difficult to use and it doesn't add any real value to our software.

No news yet on the job, except that interviews should be scheduled soon. I know there are some political issues going on, but it's not clear how or if those might affect me, my department, or the hiring process for the new jobs. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed.

Right now... I'm feeling a little sticky.

It's been so freakin' hot for the last few days! Over the weekend, it was in the upper 90s. Yesterday it was over 100. At 9:30am this morning it was already 87 degrees, and by the time I left work it was 107! It's supposed to be just as hot tomorrow and maybe Thursday too. Luckily my apartment stays relatively cool, but it's still probably over 80 degrees in here. Not exactly comfortable, although I'm sure I'm doing a lot better than the people who live upstairs!

I'm going to eat some ice cream to help cool off, and then hit the hay!

Monday Mornings Suck Big Donkey Balls

Sunday evening, I'm already tensed up in anticipation of going to work the next day.

By Monday morning, I'm in pure survival mode.

Joey called my cell phone while I was in the shower. Like 5 times. I see that he called me, but I don't have any way to call him back. And I need to get to work. So I move on with my day.

Just do whatever you have to do to get through this day so you can go home.

Usually that involves a huge amount of effort to suppress my emotions, which doesn't really work, and I end up near boiling under the surface, ready to explode in anger at any moment.

I don't want to work on ill-planned projects.

I don't want to sit in a room full of idiots all day long.

I don't want to be "energized" when the process is so draining.

I don't want my decision making power to be eroded even further.

I don't want the village idiot to be labeled as any kind of expert. He most certainly is not.

I don't want to waste effort on trying to concentrate when I'm constantly surrounded by the noise of extraneous discussion.

We start at 9:30am sharp. My time is no longer my own. We do a stand-up meeting with everyone in the department, then straight to an hour-long lecture from our consultant. It's like being in school again.

This particular lecture makes me roll my eyes a lot. I'm coming to realize that I just don't believe in this process. It's been three years of mistakes, and apparently we haven't learned from any of them. We're still concentrating on processes instead of people. We're still trusting people to be smart and competent, but that's just not the case.

During the lecture, I can hear my office phone ringing, and I know it's Joey, but I can't get up to answer it. It's group time, and we're in the middle of a lecture.

The lecture is pissing me off, people's bone-headed responses to the lecture are pissing me off, and the sound of my phone still ringing in my office 10 minutes later is pissing me off. It feels like everyone wants a piece of me. I just want my time to be my own again, even if only for a few minutes.

When the lecture is finally over, I have that now-familiar awkward moment where I have no idea what I should be doing. I have similar moments throughout the day, but this one is more ambiguous than usual.

I'm supposed to pick a partner to pair with. Two people have already paired off, which leaves only one person to pair with me. But he's nowhere to be found, and I don't want to work with him anyway. He's an idiot.

As I'm standing there, feeling lost, I hear my phone ring again. I run to my office to answer it.

I'm annoyed. This is at least the 15th time today Joey's called me, even if it's only the first time I've been able to answer.

Literally. There were about 5 missed calls on my phone before I left for work. There were 5 or 6 missed calls, plus text messages that must have come in since I got to work. And I heard my office phone ring repeatedly during the lecture.

It's not that I don't want to talk, but... I'm at work. Work pisses me off. I'm in shut-down survival mode, and I'm just barely holding it together. I'm talking on my office phone, which is located right next to the group area. Everyone can hear me and they all know I'm on a personal phone call. And it's been made very clear that I'm expected to participate with the group during certain hours. I'm under enormous pressure to "be a team player" by not hiding in my office. It makes me so agitated. And Joey knows this - I've explained it to him before.

Joey questions me about why I haven't answered his calls.

I was just in a lecture, I tell him.

But I tried to call you earlier, he says.

I must have been in the shower, I tell him.

He says, well I didn't want to call too early and wake you up, but I tried to call early enough that I would catch you before your shower. What time was it? It was 7:57am. I thought I was calling early enough to catch you.

I don't know. Maybe I was outside. I got up early to water my plants and give the cats fresh water. It's supposed to be over 100 today.

Well I tried to call you when...

Does it matter? (I'm irritated by all the details.)

Does it matter? (He questions my question.)

Yeah. Why are we still talking about this? I missed your call, I'm sorry. I don't know where I was or what I was doing. But we're talking now, so let's talk.

We'll you're in a pissy mood.

I'm not in a mood, Joey. I'm at work, work sucks. I'm not having a good day, and I don't want to answer 20 questions about... (well intentioned yet short-tempered explanation completely cut off)

Well I can see your in a pissy mood. Thanks for taking it out on me. I'll talk to you later.

And he was gone. I thought he hung up on me. My face got all hot and tense, and the tears poured. After I'd been trying so hard all morning to keep it together and get through the day. I wanted to scream, but I was sitting right next to the group area. Then I realized everybody probably just heard that. I feel embarrassed.

Then I got text from him. He didn't intend to hang up on me, the call got dropped. But he'll talk to me later.

Once again, I have no way to call him back. And hang up or not, the damage is already done. He knows about my situation at work. He knows I'm upset all the time. I needed his patience and understanding more than anything. He was the one person who could have helped me. But he wasn't patient. He bailed. And now I feel alone and hurt, on top of my existing anger and frustration.

I sat in my office for a good 10 minutes, facing away from the door, trying to collect myself so I could go back out and face the group.

A coworker pokes his head into my office and asks me if I want to pair. I have to get up and go out there, but I'm totally not ready. I can only imagine what my face looks like right now.

The coworker enthusiastically asks me what I want to work on. I don't fucking care. I don't want to work on anything. I don't even want to be here.

Well, what's this one about? I point at a card on the white board, forcing myself to engage.

He begins explaining it to me, and I start to get frustrated because he's so amazingly clueless, yet he's all excited to dive right in.

I guess ignorance really is bliss.

I wish I was more stupid. Then maybe I'd be happy today.

Strangeness

Dream --

Night time, outdoors.
Sitting in bleachers with Joey.
Big crowd.
His family members near by.
I fight with random asshole guy.
Joey's orders stolen from his pocket.
Random asshole guy has them.
I take them back, hand them to Joey.
Joey is expressionless.
He walks away.
I try to follow.
Long hallway in a high school (?).
Joey is fast, keeps disappearing around corners.
I catch up to two female family members, who are also following.
Doctor's office or hospital room?
Team of doctors.
Joey is sitting, looking at me but not talking.
Doctors are examining x-rays and other images.
Something wrong with Joey's organ (liver, pancreas?).
Nobody will talk to me.
I panic.
I start crying.
Then... Joey's voice talking, even though his mouth isn't moving. Like a dramatic voiceover.
He's talking about me in the third person.
He says he can't stand to see me upset, but there's nothing he can do.

At that moment, I'm jolted out of sleep by my cell phone ringing loudly.
It's 4:30am.
I answer, but I can't hear anybody on the line.
The call is dropped, I close my phone.
The phone rings 3 more times.
Then I get a text message.
It's Joey.
The phone rings again, and finally I hear his voice.
Joey just arrived in Iraq.
The call gets dropped.
Then another text.

I spend the next hour laying awake.

Dream --

Day time now.
Same town as before, but Joey is gone.
Shooting in streets.
People in black with big guns, fighting with police.
I hide.
Shooters are in my hiding places.
I look for new places to hide.
Other people are hiding too.
I sneak through stores and houses, closer to Joey's car.
Finally, shooting is over.
I want to drive home ASAP.
Can't find Joey.
He's not at the bleachers.
Not in doctor/hospital room.
I drive down a dirty dead-end road to rocks.
I get out of the car.
There's a massive upheaval of rocks at the end of the road.
It's not just the end of the road, it's the end of the town, the end of the land.
Ocean beyond the rocks.
Rocks massive and jagged with huge crevasses.
Strange people hanging out at end of road.
Vampires?
Joey is not among them.
I realize they're watching me.
Scared.
I get back in the car.

Alarm clock.
8:00am.

I'm awake and completely depressed.

Getting By

Another up and down week.

There have been moments of excitement and energy, and moments of complete and utter exhaustion. On some days I am wholly checked out from the rest of the world. I'm so tired of being frustrated.

The owner of my apartment complex asked me if I wanted to return as their tech support person, with a discount on my rent as payment. I had already done it for two years. The work was a mild pain in the ass, but cheap rent was nice. I can always use extra money. However, because of what I'm going through at work, and because Joey is gone, I just don't feel up to it. I'm so drained at the end of every work day. My personal time is sacred, and I don't want to fill it up with a second job, even one with a relatively small time commitment. So I told him no.

Earlier this week, I talked to my mom on the phone, and the first thing she asked me was how I'm dealing with Joe being gone and being just days from going into Iraq. After we talked about my frustrating life, she talked my ear off about hers. It was a depressing conversation. I went to bed right afterward.

The next morning before I was even out of bed, I got text from Joe's mom. She had been reading the news again, and had gotten all paranoid about Joe's safety. She wanted to know if I knew where Joe is, when I'd heard from him last, where's he's going to be in the next few days. Joe can't even tell me where he is -- I know he's in Kuwait, but I'm not allowed to know where in Kuwait. I know he'll be in Iraq soon, but I don't know what day he's going.

So... I got my mom right before bed, and Joe's mom first thing the next morning. More reminders of the fact that he's gone, that we all miss him, that he's in danger. It set the tone for that whole day, which turned out to be all sorts of crappy.

The one bright spot in my week was an impromptu meeting. The supervisor of the new position I applied for, who happens to be a good friend of mine, called me into his office today. He told me that I am one of their top 3 candidates, and he wants to give me an interview, maybe as early as next week.

Apparently, the initial testing for this position resulted in a very small pool of viable candidates. So small that they questioned whether to interview now, or re-open the position for two more weeks in an attempt to get more applicants. The decision hinged on my interest in an interview.

The supervisor explained to me that this position will be very different from my current position in several big ways. He wanted to make sure I understood that, and find out whether that knowledge would change my interest in the job.

Actually, it's because of those differences that this new position is exciting to me. There are things about my current position that have frustrated me for years. Even as we venture into this crazy reorganization experiment for the next 6 months where we totally change the way we do our work every day, those same frustrations remain. They're a huge source of stress, anger, and depression.

So this information about the new position was really great news, and it came at a great time.

That being said, I'm still enormously exhausted. This was such a long and ridiculous day, which is how every day this week has been. I'm so glad tomorrow's Friday.

I think about my husband all the time. I've been able to talk to him a couple times during the last week, but our conversations are so short. I don't get to tell him all the things I want to. I have this fear that we're going to lose touch with each other because we can't talk and keep each other up to date on our daily lives. I hope that doesn't happen.

I keep having dreams that I'm getting ready to go do things -- like last night, I was getting myself all packed to go camping -- and I'm just waiting for Joey to get home. I've had at least three of these dreams. I've always got something fun planned, but I can't go until Joey gets home so he can go with me. I'm always waiting for him. When I wake up, I feel so groggy and melancholy.

On the bright side, I have been sleeping without antihistamines for the last couple days, and I'm actually getting some decent sleep. My digestive system seems to be a bit better too, although still not perfect.

I just have to get through tomorrow, and then I'll have a whole weekend to relax.

Test Day

So things have leveled off a bit, at least for now. I had a very lazy weekend, and it was lovely. I slept a lot, I watched a couple movies (saw the new Harry Potter - fantastic), I played a little WoW, I tinkered with my computer, and I got to hear Joey's voice, not once, but twice.

At work, we are beginning to settle into our new area. Most of the day-long meetings are behind us now, and we're starting to get back to actually working. This is good for me, because my sense of satisfaction is tied to my feeling of whether or not I'm getting things done and accomplishing goals.

Even though I'm not overtly tense like I was last week, I'm still feeling the effects. I've still had trouble with eating and sleeping patterns.

When I get hungry, nothing sounds good. When I sit down to eat, my stomach starts to hurt before I get full. I've been continuing my vitamins, and I cranked up the probiotics a bit. I can tell it's helping, but I'm still not 100%. It would really help if I could bring myself to drink a protein shake in the morning, but that's when my stomach has been the muckiest.

On the sleeping front, I still can't sleep well at night without taking an antihistamine, yet I had no problem sleeping most of the day away unaided on Saturday. Then of course, I was wide awake Saturday night. I suspect it's anxiety that keeps me up at night. I'm able to fall asleep during the day when I zone out to the TV, but when I'm lying awake at night with no distractions, I start thinking.

Joey is almost done with training in Kuwait, and will be moving on to Iraq by the end of the week. I definitely have some anxiety about that, but I'm trying to keep things in perspective.

Today I take the test for that job I applied for -- a different position in a different department at my current company. Actually, I need to go get ready for that -- it's in about 15 minutes. And my Outlook reminder just popped up, so...

I guess that's about it for now. So far so good.

Zombie -- And Not The Good Kind

I'm so out of it today. I need a recap of my week to help me clear my brain of this heavy fog.

Wednesday (last week) -- It was my last day to talk with Joe before he left for Kuwait.

Wednesday night -- Phone call in the middle of the night from Joe. He was getting ready to leave. I didn't sleep well, and woke up feeling drained.

Thursday -- All day meeting at work. Energy zapped. Depressing conversation.

Thursday night -- Broke down, cried for hours.

Friday morning -- Woke up with sore throat and congestion. Called in sick.

Friday -- Slept and didn't do much else. Still got work on my mind. Joe called to tell me he made it to Kuwait. Happy to hear his voice, but bummed out that we no longer have time to really talk about things.

Saturday -- Throat still sore, still tired, still thinking about work. Slept some more. Played WoW. Went to see Transformers 2. It was long.

Sunday -- Feeling better, but still tired. Slept some more. Played more WoW. Managed to get some household chores done. More thoughts about work.

Monday -- Half day of regular work, followed by off-site seminar with my department. Touchy-feely stuff. Incredibly draining and frustrating.

Monday night -- Cried hard. Ate dinner. Cried some more. Went to bed. Cried some more. Thoughts of work, people, the mythical winning lottery ticket, and Joey.

Tuesday morning -- Eyes and cheeks so swollen, it looked like someone hit me in the face. Still weepy. Drove across town to the off-site location for more seminar.

Tuesday -- More draining. Behavior style profiles reveal nothing new, but bring up old issues that get me thinking. Frustrating memories. But maybe opportunity, as our consultant wants to use this information to make sure the introverts don't always get steamrolled by the extroverts.

Tuesday night -- Urge to cry, but nothing left. Laid down on the couch and just stared blankly until I fell asleep. Woke up an hour later, starving. Got up to make dinner. Felt so heavy and sluggish. Went to bed early, numb.

Wednesday -- Dragged myself out of bed to drive across town for the last day of off-site meeting. Frustrating group discussion. Everyone hates someone else for different reasons. Draining. After lunch, back to the office for a 2-hour meeting. So tired.

-----
Interrupted by the consultant for a meeting. Really wanted to finish my thoughts before I started the work day. Grrrr....
-----
Work day over now, getting ready to go home.
-----

Wednesday night -- After work, played Bingo with the in-laws. I didn't even come close to winning, but it was nice to visit with family, and also nice to have a mindless zone-out activity to take my thoughts away from work.

Thursday morning -- Very, very heavy and tired. Grumpy. Went to the chiropractor, and he noted the stiffness of my neck tissue, but said my spine looked good -- all the problems are muscular. Tension from stress. No big surprise there. Went to work feeling pissed off.

Thursday -- [up to current now] Snapped at my coworker, then had to apologize because he did nothing wrong -- I was just in a shitty ass mood. My mood gradually improved, and in the afternoon I did some pair coding which was actually fun. The inept developer is out for two days, so the two of us remaining were able to work quickly and efficiently.

I got some new information about the potential new position we discussed in last Thursday's all-day meeting -- the one that got me thinking and made me depressed. The consultant believes that in the short term we will not get the new position, and later, if/when we do, he believes I will not be qualified for it. He's looking for someone with many years of experience in our industry at the business decision making level. Not the news I wanted, but at least I don't have to guess about it anymore.

The position I applied for in another department -- the first portion of the interview is a basic skills test. I will take the test on Monday of next week. If I pass the test, I will move on to a face-t0-face interview. But it is likely that the overall hiring process will be slow. It could be 4-6 weeks before I know if I get the job. Still, I'm happy that the process is rolling now.

New home computer parts should arrive today. New webcam so I can talk to Joey when he gets internet access, and new wireless adapter that should work better with Windows 7 than my old one.

Going home now. Feeling more lighthearted than I have all week, but I really miss my husband. It was hard enough not being able to see him or touch him. Now, not being able to hear his voice or share my daily life with him is so difficult, especially when I've had so much going on at work.

Oh, and apparently someone from the army, or from an army family support group called his mother to tell her that he landed safely in Kuwait. That phone call should have come to me. This makes me think the army still doesn't have all of our information up to date.

Anyway... I'm just trying to keep him in my thoughts, and send him mental hugs and loves every chance I get. Besides that, I'm just doing the best I can to get through each day.

Tomorrow's Friday. :)

Summer Downpour

I broke down on Thursday.

Joe had flown out to Kuwait the night before, and I hadn't slept well because of it.

We had a 6 hour meeting at work. The meeting was productive overall, but I started getting a headache midway through. Towards the end, we had discussion about a potential new position, one I would be very interested in. For about 10 minutes, I felt excited about the possibility of this position becoming a reality. Then I was reminded that, at least for now, nothing will change.

I started to get depressed, and once again I had that old familiar internal dialog -- what am I doing here? What do I really want?

After the meeting was over, my head pounded, and I was in desperate need of some alone time. But our new departmental strategy is that everyone works together in a shared workspace.

I couldn't handle it.

I left and went outside for about 30 minutes. I watched the bees and butterflies dancing around the lavender bushes, and I cried.

When I came back, my help was solicited in building our new workstations. I didn't want anything to do with it, but I did it anyway. When things didn't immediately work the way they should, I lost my patience.

With a terrible headache and now the beginnings of a sore throat, I left the office to go home. In the car I started crying again.

Ordinarily when I had a bad day like this, I would call or text Joey, and he would give me the right combination of sympathy and ass kicking to get me through it. But he's gone now. I have no way to contact him, and even if I did, I don't want him worrying about me, especially not because of something as stupid as work. He's got more important things to focus on now.

I felt so alone and so frustrated. I cried for hours, even as I tried to pull myself up and take care of household chores. I just lost it. I finally went to bed early.

The next morning, my throat and sinuses were swollen. I could hardly swallow. I called in sick to work. I spent about an hour tooling around on the computer, and then I started to get sleepy. I ended up sleeping on the couch for most of the day.

Joey had tried to call, and I missed it because I was sleeping. I accidentally deleted his message, but tried to go back and save it before hanging up. But... damn the bad cell signal in my apartment... the call got dropped just before I pressed the button to save it. It was gone.

Thankfully he called again that night. He made it to Kuwait, and I got her hear all about it. But I didn't tell him about my Thursday. I just told him I was sick and I'd been sleeping all day. I don't want him to worry.

I spent the rest of the weekend thinking. How am I going to handle work on Monday? How am I going to handle it for the next 6 months during this group experiment of ours? Am I really committed to this? What if I'm not? Am I obligated to tell somebody about it? What if my attitude jeopardizes the success of the project?

I still don't know how I feel, or what I should do. I did come to the realization that having my own office, especially one with a window, has become one of the highlights of my job, and giving it up so I can sit in a group environment with people who constantly piss me off is a very serious challenge, one that will probably take months to adjust to. Besides all the other things that will be tough to deal with, the loss of my personal space is huge. I knew it would be hard, but I didn't realize how hard until I watched the group workspace come together during the last week.

I'll just have to take it one day at a time, like everything else. Tomorrow is a new day.

This afternoon it started raining, for the first time in weeks. It smells and sounds and feels so wonderful outside right now. It's amazing how a good rain can make me feel refreshed all over. I know I'm crazy, but sometimes I wish it would keep raining all summer. :)

Oh! This weekend is the anniversary of the weekend when Joey and I met each other.

Serendipity.

Gathering Focus

Trouble concentrating today, so I decided to write a bit to collect myself.

This may be one of the last times I get to do this at work... today we're setting up a community workspace in what used to be our meeting area. I will still have my own office, I just won't be in it for a majority of the day. Instead, I'll be sitting at a "pairing station" with another developer. All work will be done in pairs now. Shared workspace, shared responsibility.

I'm not sure how I feel about this change. I can see it being positive in the long run, but it's a huge shift for us culturally, and for me personally. When I work by myself, I like to close the door, turn up the music, and get in the zone while I write code. That won't be an option anymore.

I also won't be able to take phone calls from my husband any time I want to, nor can I get away with installing and using Skype at the office. I probably won't even be logged into instant messenger most of the time.

This is different for me. It will bring new challenges.

Joey is packing up his gear to go to Iraq. He leaves some time this week. I'm not supposed to know exactly what date/time (sensitive information), but I do... although it could still change.

Once Joe gets on the plane, he won't have cell phone service again until he comes home. We should be able to talk over Skype, but we don't know how long it will be before he'll have internet access available, or the free time to use it. It could be days or weeks. So when we say our last phone-goodbyes, we do so without knowing when we'll communicate next. That's scary to me.

I'm pretty freaked out about him going over there. Roadside bombs and suicide attacks are still a frequent reality. And with the U.S. withdrawing troops from population centers, the climate is changing. We've seen significantly less violence during the last year or two, compared to the start of the war, but that could change during the transition to the military hand-off.

My deepest prayer is that this will be the most boring and uneventful year of Joe's life. (Sorry baby, but it's only because I want you to come home safely.) I just imagine him sitting on his ass at a well-protected military base, only going out for missions that are brief and routine. Nothing threatening or out of the ordinary. I have this vision of him being hot and sweaty from the desert weather, counting down the days until this pointless job is over, then finally being released to come home.

I can't wait for that.

But right now, I'm trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) not to focus on it, especially while I'm at work. There's already so much chaos in the office, with the transformation of our workspace and processes. As if I need anything else to make my head spin!

Actually, spending most of my time with a coding partner might help me keep my mind off Joe being in Iraq. One of my problems right now is that my mind wanders away from the task at hand, and I start thinking about non-work related topics. With another person sitting next to me to keep me on task all day, that's less likely to happen. So maybe this shift in my work environment is a blessing in disguise.

I love my husband. July 4th was our 2 month anniversary. I can't wait to celebrate 1 year, 5 years, 25 years... 50 years? Maybe if I live that long. ;-)

Checking In

I've been so busy and so stressed out lately, but luckily I've got a 5-day weekend ahead. :)

Here's the short(ish) run-down:
-- Everything at work has been turned upside down, and I've been very tense because of it. I believe it will work out for the best in the end, but it's going to be an uphill struggle to get there.

-- I built myself a new computer, and I made so many mistakes in the process! It's been so long since I played with hardware, so many things have changed. Windows XP wouldn't install, then it installed but wouldn't accept the product key. Windows 7 had strange issues with performance and compatibility. With all this experimentation, I haven't had a fully working system for about a week now. But I finally got Windows 7 RC running smoothly tonight, and if I'm lucky I might even be able to play WoW tonight!

-- I've been having trouble sleeping, and I finally resorted to taking allergy medication to make me drowsy at night, but it also makes me groggy in the morning. I decided I'd rather be groggy for a couple hours than exhausted all day long. Lesser of two evils!

-- My car had been smelling like burning oil for months, and I finally had it looked at. I had a leaking valve gasket or some such. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law gave me rides to and from the auto mechanic. It's weird having family in town!

-- I finally had an appointment with the counselor - I guess she's technically a military life specialist. She's not like any counselor I've seen before. She doesn't have an office - we met for coffee. She bought me a bagel. She's warm, upbeat, open, and has a quirky, fun sense of humor. I really enjoyed talking with her. We've been keeping in touch via email, and will probably meet again during the next month.

-- Tomorrow I'm driving to my mom's for the holiday. I haven't seen her since my wedding, and I haven't been to visit at her house since the end of January. We're going to a quarterly astrology overview tomorrow night. I can't wait!

-- Last but certainly not least, I miss my husband so, so much. It's been nearly 2 months since he left, and it's been really hard, especially with the frustrations at work. On some days all I want to do is come home to him, have a good conversation, share a meal, and snuggle up for some lovin. But I can't. On the bright side, even from a distance, he's the best partner I could ask for, and I'm so grateful that we got married. He's my very favorite person in this world.

I guess that's about it. It's been a long and frustrating few weeks, but it seems like things are headed in the right direction.