Running out of time

That could be the story of my life. There is a new craze to describe your life in six words – I guess that is only four words… how about “never enough time, want it all”? I better think on that a bit more. Anyway, tomorrow morning we drop off the big dog at puppy camp and head to the airport bright and early.

I am sorta but not really ready. I think I have all the medical records and information and forms gathered. I have my e-tickets and my e-reservations. I have my mapquest directions to anywhere we might try to drive. Our vacation pictures are on my thumb drive, as are the estate records I need to review with my brother. I have 200 songs on my new iPod Shuffle. What did we ever do without computers? Less. Less is more. A lot less in my life right now would be a lot more satifying for me.

I said sorta ready because there are still more clothes than will fit in the suitcase, and the ongoing crises at work await me. This time I’m stressed because I’m afraid some stupid thing I forgot to do will blow up and my partners will need to bail me out. I guess it’s time to get over there and start triage for then next 9 hours or so.

Concrete Pouring

Today was the big day for my next-door neighbors. They are finally pouring the concrete slab for their new garage. This saga has been going on for over a year. He started trying to just enlarge the old garage. Finally tore it down and started over. SO has been helping him, since he (the neighbor) has absolutely no construction experience. The neighbor got some of his students who work on a concrete crew to come over and help with the pour. Four or five friends and family members showed up to check out the action. I sat on the deck in the cool morning air with the neighbor’s wife and we drank coffee and caught up on each other’s lives.

We become good friends every summer when we see each other in the yard, but barely talk between October and April. They are probably the main reason I have never moved to a bigger, fancier house. I’ve lived here since 1989 and they have been there since about 1978 I think. I love the permenance of it – of being part of an established neighborhood where people stay put. I hate the idea of big suburban McMansions where people come and go year after year, always “upgrading” to the next best thing, taking on more and more debt along the way.

Anyway – I suddenly started realizing we leave next Saturday, and I’d better get organized this weekend, since next week is going to be crazy busy again. I have to make sure I have all the medical records to take with me, and since my brother and I will be back in the hometown together for the first time since Mom died, I’d better take the bank records we need in order to close some remaining accounts.

I need to take the laptop so we can look at pictures of our trip – or maybe I’ll just put them on a thumb drive. I’m sure I’ll forget something important, since I always do. At least with e-tickets I can’t forget or loose the plane ticket, and we’re not leaving the country, so I don’t need my passport. I guess I need to know what airline we are on, though. Better look that up!

Then I need a gift and book for the grab-bag exchanges my friends and I will do. And some mapquest of where the heck we are supposed to be going… Yeah… I better quit goofing off and get some stuff done!

Ending the Week on a Good Note

Work has been really stressful this week.  The school plans were not done correctly or completely, now we are paying for it by trying to issue addenda (corrections) for everything that was wrong.  I’m going to have to work on the weekend again, because  I need to be able to focus on what I’m doing.  The problem this week has been that I’m working on projects with six different people, and when you add in all the tax planning issues that must be resolved at the last minute and the people who just want to chat, I have about 10 interruptions per hour. That doesn’t include the e-mails and phone calls.  I can’t just hide, because all these people need me to guide them, answer them, keep them moving.  It would  all be simple, if all I did was manage people, but I am also expected to do real work myself.

 

The other reason I need to work on the weekend is I stupidly promised to have some house plans done for my favorite clients, for a meeting on Wednesday.  Then we leave on our two week trip back east next Saturday.   The added stress for the week was the continued lack of coordination with the doctors at the Big Important Hospital.  As of yesterday it appeared I would only be seen by the neuro and not the rheum.  That really ticked me off, because my problem is essentially rheumatological in nature (lupus).  Thankfully, it all fell together today, and they actually called me to let me know the rheum. would indeed be able to see me  - and even on the same day as the neuro.  Wow.  Hard to believe. 

 

The third big stressor of the week was a questionable lab test result yesterday showing possible protein in my kidneys, which would indicate that the lupus is affecting them now too.  I had to run over to the lab and give another sample which thankfully (again) turned out to be normal.

 

Oh, and speaking of stress – Yesterday I had to open the office at 7:15 am for the Rotary board meeting.  Worked all day, then had another board meeting at 5:30, and a planning commission meeting from 7:00 pm to about 10.  I hate “first Thursdays.”  On the way home, exhausted, at 10:15 – a cat ran into the road and I hit it.  I feel very guilty that I didn’t go back or do anything for this cat.  From the sound that I heard, I am sure it did not survive.  It was a dark empty road, with no homes nearby that could conceivably been the cat’s – so I don’t really know what I could have done.   But it wasn’t a good ending to the already bad day.

I’m just feeling good that things seem to be turning around today. 

Meeting on the Internet

It’s funny how we have gone from thinking that “internet friends” are a wierd thing that only gullible lonely women or wacko ax murders would have to the reality of the various websites that enable people to meet vicariously.  (Hm.  Is that the right use of vicarious?)  I was out in front of the curve a little bit – I started participating in an AOL forum around 1994 or ‘95.  It was a forum for “childfree” women.  Having that in common made for some quick and close bonds.  Groups of as many as 25 of us gathered around the country for 5-6 years.  The message board deteriorated as AOL did, and the annual meetings stopped a couple years ago. 

However,  I do still have four or five close friends from the group that I still correspond with and meet up with semi-regularly.    These women are probably – no certainly – my best friends.  Rarely a day goes by that we don’t e-mail about some detail of our lives, or some interesting tidbit of news.  We’ve seen each other through divorces, marriages, deaths of parents, and even – whoa! – the birth of a child. 

Completely separately from these friends, there is a group of “bloggers” or “diarists” that I follow, though I’ve never met them and rarely even comment on their blogs.  I started having an interest in blogs before they were blogs, when they  were still just on line diaries.  There was (is) a list of the best  at diarist dot net, which I would browse until finding someone interesting.  Then I’d follow their links to others.  At this point there are about five on my “regulars” list and five or six more that I check into sporadically.  I’m not going to post a list here, because I’m not really clear on the etiquitte and don’t want to cause anyone any grief.  It really doesn’t matter.   My point, and I do have one, is that I’ve grown to feel like these people are friends as well, and I share in the joys and sorrows that they share in their blogs. 

Strangely, at least two of them suffer from serious medical conditions.  I didn’t know this when I started reading, but maybe that’s why I stuck with them.  They are brave and strong, and filled with humor not anger, so I take inspiration from them.