Survival in DC

I survived another long week of work in DC this past week. I had a 7 am flight Monday morning, which means i have to get up by 4:15 in order to get ready, finish packing, make it to the airport, park, check baggage & get on the plane. There were a couple of bright spots in this week's travel - thank goodness - because it was a LONG week with lots of hours unfortunately.

Bright spot #1 - I got to see one of my old buddies from my old sector!! He was in town as well last week & was staying near the Pentagon. So I drove there to meet up with him for dinner on Monday night. He is a retired Navy guy who I worked with very closely in my last job as he was the Director of Contracts & I was of Business Management on the same program. So needless to say, we worked together a lot & became very good friends. He was like a surrogate dad in the office, as he is wise with lots of life experience, some good & some bad. His wife is a breast cancer survivor (happened in the past couple of years) and has had to completely rebuild his home after Katrina. On the good side of life experiences, he has been blessed with many grandchildren that he loves dearly!

Bright spot #2 - The new guy started!! WOOHOO! I had mentioned in a post a while back how i had basically been doing 3 jobs? Well that number should drop back now, as the guy we hired to take over one of the group business management jobs started this past monday. I tried to spend as much time as possible with him to bring him up to speed on our portfolio & issues going on with his programs (that I had been covering in the past couple of months). The quicker he gets up to speed, the quicker I can go back to concentrating on my particular responsibilities. Like I had mentioned to my boss & anybody else who would listen....I had been feeling like that poor chap in the cartoon that was sticking his fingers / toes / nose / elbow in the dam, but water would just squirt out somewhere else!!! I am glad to have someone standing at the dam with me again.

Bright spot #3 - No airport delays!!!! WOW! Write it down! I did have 30 minute delays on both ends, but I don't even count those as delays after the summer of traveling i have had!! So I made it there on time, and also made it back home Friday night on time. What a difference that makes.

Bright spot #4 - I was supposed to get together with an old friend from my old stomping grounds in MO (Salisbury, which is the neighboring town to my home town of Keytesville). My brother saw BM (not bowel movement, this is his initials) one weekend & mentioned that I had been traveling to DC with my job. Apparently he was also scheduled to be in the area at the same time, so we had tried to meet up. He is married to one of my old friends from high school too, and we know tons of the same people since we grew up in such a small town. It unfortunately didn't work out for us to get together because of the long hours I had to work, but we did get to catch up over the phone. It was great to find out about where all of our common friends were & what they were doing. I love those conversations - they are good to have every now & then to catch up on old friends.

Bright spot #5 - I had a great meeting with executive management while I was there. Don't want to go into any details here, but it was awesome!

Bright spot #6 - The new guy gave me a nickname "Ms Partly Sunny". It's not so much the nickname or this person giving it to me that was the bright spot. The bright spot was that my happiness must show through, even among the stress & long hours. It also reminded me that people are always watching & the best witness I can be for my God is to let others see Him through me.

So all in all, it was a good week at work.

I'm very glad to have Jim home too - he had a long week of work too. Check out his blog for the details (I am assuming he'll be posting about it).