No Complaints

Daily life continues at a hectic pace. I work. I sleep. I react to urgent situations and try to plan a sustainable strategy for my professional life in general. I meant to blog several times over the past week - I had stories and questions, but little time to share them. And, honestly, as my prioritization are constantly refined, I find writing here falls below replying to emails, calling home and - sometimes - blankly staring at baseball games on television until I fall asleep from a mixture of exhaustion and sheer boredom.

We did our first set of global reviews since I started with the company last week. I owned the project - I'm told that's a rather large vote of confidence - and, quite frankly, rocked. It wasn't perfect - some people were late, others didn't attend at all, the presentations had a few minor mistakes that the audience caught - but there were times when I would answer a question and watch people's reactions and I'd pause to think that I was amazingly good at this. I get it. I've found my balance. I can present material with focus and enthusiasm and find I'm quite influential with my opinions. So while I was exhausted after the week was over, I smiled sleepily at all the emails and phone calls that congratulated me on an excellent 20 hours of meetings.

After finishing on Friday, I hurried home and clean a bit and do mounds of laundry. Mom, Brother, his girlfriend and the Little and Smallest Ones arrived on schedule and immediately set to finding all the presents I'd placed around the house. Dad stayed home with an illness and I assured Mom it was fine to come despite some vomiting stories from the girls last week.

I added another story when Little One was sick in bed on Friday night. After a moment of shameful revulsion, I braced myself and scooped her up from the other side of my bed and got the grossness off her. Tossing my own shirt aside and leaving her with Mom and wrapped in a towel, I grabbed my softest robe, bundled her up and put her to bed with ice chips while I started more laundry.

But yesterday was lovely - all of us felt mildly crappy but doggedly played games and laughed and went for walks in my quaint and lovely town so we could look at the river and admire the trees.

"Waterfall!" Smallest One repeated, pointing and bouncing on the toes of her bright pink sneakers as she pointed at it. "Ducks! Waterfall!" I snuggled Little One's head under my chin while grinning at Smallest One as she once again pushed her hood back. They're wonderful. And though I've no doubt they inflicted me with untold germs, it was totally worth it.

The left this morning before 7. Mom was unwell but decided to brave the trip. Smallest One clutched the Big Bird toy she got yesterday and Little One waved from her seat in the back. I went back to bed, head aching and full of items I had yet to do for work. But I find I'm remarkably happy after a nap. I like what I do. I love these delightful people who are related to me. And Autumn is undeniably lovely up here.