weekend report

Friday - Newer Dancer Night and Teacher M dancing! Downwood brought the kids up and we had dinner together. Then, he took a wheezy Ox to Walgreens and I took a hyper Emi up to Med Hookah. We sat with Au and family and RH and family. And it was wonderful. During the first Newer Dancer, I crowded into billzilla's personal space - this dancer has never had a good relationship with where she is in space and nearly smacked me in the head multiple times with her grand, sweeping gestures. Ugh.

But overall it was fun. I have friends! Interesting friends! And my Wonder Woman Moneta dress got many compliments. And there's a picture out there of Teacher M trying to lick my tattoo. Good times. :)

Saturday - Hot and muggy. It was Werk Picnic day, so we got sunscreened up, grabbed swimming stuff, and headed up to town. We met my folks and then trekked over to werk. The picnic food was DELICIOUS. We about had to use a crowbar to pry a very, very sweaty Ox out of the bouncy houses. Emi got a balloon octopus and likewise loved the bouncy houses.

Then, the rain finally started. Hooray for cooling down and giving us an excuse to go inside!

So I took my folks and Downwood on a bit of a tour of campus. I showed our new-ish auditorium. It's impressively huge. Downwood wants them to move GenCon to it. I then took them over to our new buildings. Emi was ASTOUNDED by the new train-station-themed cafeteria and wants to come have lunch with me every day. The grownups were impressed both by the pretty of the buildings and the scale of this construction.

After walking, walking, walking, we went back to the hotel and went swimming. Best. Plan. Ever. Then we just hung out in the hotel room. The kids snacked and played with Grandma and Grandpa. I chatted with my folks. Downwood nearly napped.

The kids were SO TIRED that bedtime was a battle. Too tired to chill out.

Sunday - I fell back into the depression/anxiety pit. I tried to play some Guild Wars, but had the start of a panic attack at the loading screen, so gave up on that. I did a TON of laundry and a bunch of sewing instead. I hemmed many things (test shorts, test capris, dress, skirt, 2 emi dresses, skirt, probably something else), since hemming doesn't really take a lot of brain. I nearly finished two dresses for Emi, but either have run out of or lost my package of 3/8" elastic. Drat.

I also did a lot of picking up with the kids. We got the TV room organized. I also went through both kid rooms and put all the books on the shelves correctly. My former librarian nature came out, though I didn't even bother trying to alphabetize. Instead, I sorted by size and got almost everything stood up with the spines pointing out. Ox thought this was GREAT and spent a lot of the afternoon looking at the books and pulling out favorites that he hadn't been able to find. :) So we got a lot of reading in, which was lovely. It'll probably be a disaster soon, but it made me happy to bring order to a little bit of our chaos.

Bedtime was difficult for Emi. She picked up on my overall sad/anxious mood and it all came out at bedtime. Then, she noticed that I was packing and I told her I'd be gone for a couple days. Cue the meltdown. So sad.

Today - I've got travel anxiety happening. In about 10 min, we'll go over to staff meeting. Then, I'll grab lunch, get my hand prints in clay (WOO! 10 years of werk here!), and race to the airport. I'll get on a plane, go to Dallas, get a rental car, get to the hotel, and then look for dinner. It'll either be Whataburger or Eatzi's, depending on how healthy I feel like being.

I'll come home on Thursday. I've got my standard pre-travel freakout. What if I miss my plane? What if I get lost? What if I get stuck? What if, what if, what if...

Yeah. Welcome back anxiety. I didn't miss you.

in one piece

After Staff Meeting, I went to hang out in a conference room. I ate lunch and sent some emails. Then, people invaded the conference room and my purpose for being there became clear: I got to put my handprints into a clay slab. This will get fired, glazed, and hung on the wall in our training compound. All hail A DECADE of werk! Hail!

Then I went to the airport. And got on a plane. And got off a plane. And picked up a rental car. 

Yes, I'm safely in Dallas. On the way to the hotel, I decided that hunger was going to win out over common sense, so I got Whataburger. I can get a salad from Eatzi's tomorrow.

I've Skyped with kidz and am considering early bed. It's stupidly hot here and I need to be cheerful and ready to go at 8. Given that it's about 45 min later with a much shorter drive than usual, I'm not worried. Just a little anxious still.

Also, my phone apparently hates the hotel wireless. It says it can see it, but is refusing to actually connect. I'm going to blame iPass for this, Ugh. WTF, phone, WTF?