I woke up this morning and checked my work e-mail. I was happy to see that they hadn't assigned me a new project just yet. I'm sure I'll get the email at any time now, but it was nice to have a couple of hours this morning to (finally) unpack from the trip to Minnesota and do some cleaning around the house that didn't get done this weekend.
This is the first morning in many, many morning that I've felt relaxed and on top of things. I am glad to say goodbye to July. The last couple of months have involved getting the ombudsman program set up at Zac's command (yes, I'm volunteering in that role again) and July seemed to have a lot of ombudsman responsibilities that took up a lot of time. I attended 20 hours of ombudsman basic training with my co-ombudsman. Those were long days. Since I was going on vacation at the end of July, I was trying to work as many hours as possible during the day. So I'd put in six or seven hours of work, eat supper, and then go attend training from 5:30-9:30pm each night. They were long, tiring days and I came out of training stressed out that we still had a fair amount of work to do to get our ombudsman program up and running. (I've got a co-ombudsman at this command who is a rockstar. I really enjoy working with her.)
I had one day between the end of training and leaving for Minnesota, so that day was filled with packing and cleaning the house. That evening we went out with friends to celebrate Zac's birthday. The next morning we up nice and early to fly to Minnesota. We spend nine days there, came back late on Tuesday night and then Wednesday morning at 8:00am I started a three-day ombudsman conference. Let's just say that I skipped the decaf and drank the real stuff that first day of the conference. I also made the error of telling my employer that I was back on Wednesday, thinking that they would assign me a project that would be due in a week or so. Turns out they had an assignment that they needed by Friday. I knew there was no way that I could attend the conference all day and work enough in the evening to complete the project by their deadline. I let them know, and offered to have it done by Monday. Luckily(?) they agreed, so I spent almost 16 hours over Saturday and Sunday working on that project. Like I said, I was happy to have a couple of hours off this morning.
In a perfect world I wouldn't have sandwiched our vacation in the middle of those two events, and I would have held off on reporting back to work, but Zac's schedule is limited as to when he can go on leave. We've often taken 10-14 days of vacation in Nebraska, but never in Minnesota. I've been home for a week or so here and there, but since I wanted Zac to be there for a long stay for a change, our choice of travel dates depended on his work. It all worked out, and looking at August I think I might have a relatively quiet month with normal work days and relatively few other events. I think it's safe to switch back to decaf.
Getting home to Minnesota was awesome. It was so good to recharge my batteries. I got to spend time with family and friends but not nearly enough with either. I'm hoping that now that we're back on the mainland that at least I will be able to pop back to MN a little more frequently. It's a lot easier to travel when visiting for three or four days is reasonable, unlike when we were in Hawaii and you had to come home for at least a week to make the expense and duration of traveling worth it.
I was happy that I finally got to show Zac some things in Minnesota that I had wanted to share with him. We were able to drive up to the cabin for a day. It was too blasted hot to want to stay any longer than that. We spent a night in the Nicollet Island Inn and hung out in NE. We walked around Minnehaha Falls. We visited some restaurants that I love. We did some fun new things together too - we visited a brewery just outside of Stillwater. We went to an archery range with Paul and Megan. Zac has shot a bow many times before, but that was the first time for the three of us. That was a lot of fun. Mostly the trip was hanging out with my family and friends, and we tried very hard this trip to not schedule every waking moment. I think it made the trip a little less stressful. It also helped, I think, that we stayed over at the hotel on the Air Reserve station. This gave all of us (Mom, Dad, Megan, Paul) a little bit of time alone during the evenings and mornings.
It was a great trip. It was nice to be able to sit around and talk with people. Really talk with them. Not small talk for five or ten minutes, but actually have conversations. I know that there are people that I missed, and I hope to catch them next time. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.
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