28 February 2011

Mr. Brown lately has been concerned about my backing up skills (or lack thereof) so he decided to put up the bumpers on our driveway.

(Seriously, people - a foot and half of snow in eight days? We are tired of shoveling!)

And you ask, have I had trouble with running into the bumpers?? Um. Yes.

12 February 2010

So we survived January. Barely. And I mean, barely. But things are looking up for the rest of February and March.

I know that everyone thinks that all that snow on the East Coast is a freak of nature, but it's actually proof that someone up above loves me very much. Let me explain.

I spent the entire sunless month of January working overtime on a huge sticky project at work. It's a stunningly large project to begin with, and was complicated by the fact that I have a hard-to-please boss, and also by the fact that the people at headquarters and higher headquarters kept issuing contradicting guidance.

Every other time this biannual project has been done, my command spends two days briefing the results to the Department of the Army, going over every single weapon system supported by the command, in detail. However, a new person was put in charge of this at DA right before the whole thing started. He didn't really have a clue what was going on or what was important, which resulted in the mixed messages about what they wanted from us. But he was really, really nice about it all. I like him.

He did know for sure, however, that he had no interest in sitting through two days of briefings about weapon systems from TACOM. He was very firm about that from the beginning. I liked him even more for that. Instead he asked for a briefing that reported on the five funding program.s which cover all the weapon systems.

He finally explained what he wanted one week before the briefing was supposed to happen, on January 29. So my team and I killed ourselves the next week trying to get the briefing together, and completely dreading the 10 am brief time on Friday morning.

Friday morning dawns, and the briefing is done but is an extremely poor representation of the genre. I am thoroughly ashamed of it, and ashamed to be the one giving it, but I am busy consoling myself with the fact that AT LEAST THIS WILL ALL BE OVER in another couple hours. Then we get an email from the DA guy saying that everyone in the Pentagon has been advised to go home, so our briefing is canceled.

So I have all of Friday to work on it! And then the government is closed on Monday! And then it snows some more on Tuesday! And on Thursday! It's now one week after I was supposed to give the dreaded briefing, and I have not heard a single thing from DA. Happiness. Bliss. Needless to say, I am much happier with what I have to present when I do hear from him.

I'm telling you, it may have seemed incredible, but really, somebody up above loves me.

I spent Wednesday and Thursday this week at home sick, which was nice. I was back at work today, and now I have Sat/Sun/Mon off, more joy. Four days of work next week, and then I'm off to Ft. Leavenworth for a class. Mr. Brown and our little monkeys are tagging along and planning to hang out in Kansas City while I'm in class. I'm very excited for the further break from work. I'll be in Kansas for two weeks, and then back at work for three weeks, and then I am traveling to Detroit for another class for a week. Mr. Brown is tagging along on this trip as well, mostly to scope out the area.

Your tax dollars at work. But I'm so looking forward to doing something besides work late every night.

4 December 2009

When I was putting the lights on the Christmas tree last Saturday, I made myself dizzy just by walking around it to get them on.

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I went on a quick trip to Detroit with my supervisor this week. We left Tuesday morning and returned Wednesday afternoon. The meeting we traveled for was a dud, but getting to meet face to face all the people that I work with daily was really great. They were all so friendly, and really seemed eager to meet me and eager for me to move up to Detroit. Honestly, it made me think about moving there a little more seriously, because really nice coworkers can make a bad job bearable. (As I know from current experience!)

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The day after I got back we had a dance party in the living room and as we all frolicked in the living room, I thought about how much I love my family. I've turned a corner. While I have never disliked any member of my family individually, I have often been frustrated with the family collective, with the restrictions and responsibilities that have fallen on me because of my children. But the past several weeks I have found that the frustration has dissipated. I love my family individually, and I love the family group, too. I am so glad and grateful that they are all in my life right now, together, at this time. And I'm really grateful to feel that way, too.