The Power of Positive Thinking

It was bound to happen eventually, I guess. After weeks of almost constant travel, it finally caught up with me this week. It being stress, exhaustion, and a general sense of feeling burnt out.

I had had a long day. I was feeling a little frustrated by some developments at work, including a overall sense of being over-worked and under-appreciated. But the tipping point was when Jason told me he was going to have to work some this weekend. I have come to rely on my weekends so much over the last few weeks and with the specter of my having to leave early Monday morning for yet another (week-long this time) trip, it was quite a blow to think that we wouldn’t have the free and easy weekend together I had been counting on. 

I had a meltdown.  A big one.

It was the perfect storm of work frustrations, personal disappointment, and exhaustion. And it resulted in one of those crying-so-hard-and-talking-so-fast-meltdowns that Jason had no idea what I was saying over the phone and I woke up the next morning with a headache and puffy eyes.

I got home last night still feeling  a little bummed out.  But after a good night’s sleep in my own bed and the prospect of two work-free days ahead, I am feeling a little better this morning.  And I have some things to look forward to: dinner with friends tonight, a free day to explore Seattle later this week, and the knowledge that in 10 days all of this travel craziness will be over and I can get back to my regular routine.  If I focus on that, maybe, just maybe, I will make it through.

I think I can, I think I can…

Simple Things

The first day back from vacation is always the worst. I think we can all agree on that. It's one of those universal truths in life. But I think that this fact is most evident when:

• your first day back is also a work day
• your flight the night before was two hours late getting home which means the only unpacking you accomplished before passing out was finding your pjs and tooth brush
• you woke up to remember that you had little food left in the apartment and had to scrounge up something for you and your husband to eat for breakfast
• you are so busy catching up from the last three and a half days of work you missed that you barely have time to shower let alone make something tasty for book club (which also happens to be your first day back)

On days like these, I am grateful for the simple things in life. Things like:

• Jason’s netbook (which allowed me to go through most of my 120+ work emails last night while sitting in the airport for almost 3 hours making this morning that much easier to get through)
• Quaker instant oatmeal
• hummus and pita chips
• the fact that tomorrow is Friday

I think that last one bears repeating….

Tomorrow. Is. Friday.

Yep. That pretty much covers it.

Up in the Air, Week 1

Please excuse the lack of posting that’s been going on the last few days. I had grand plans of trying to blog while I was on the road for work but it just didn’t happen.  I am going to have to figure out how to fix that since this week was the first of seven consecutive weeks of travel for me.

You read that right….SEVEN. WEEKS. OF TRAVEL. IN A ROW.

Over the next seven weeks I will be in 9 states (plus the two I’ve already been in this week)….that means at least one (if not two or three or four) plane rides per week until April 20th. All but one state/trip is for work, making me feel a little bit like George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air. Three days in and I am already exhausted. However, I’ve already learned three valuable lessons when it comes to this level of work travel:

1.Take advantage of the “what’s yours is mine” aspect of marriage. We have a lot of computers in our family, including two desktops, 1 broken laptop (yet to be disposed of), 1 working laptop, and a netbook. Ridiculous, I know.  Usually when I travel for work I take my large-desktop-replacing laptop with me.  However when contemplating carrying it with me (along with a carry-on suitcase and various work papers, etc) around various airports for three or more days at a time, I decided that just wasn’t going to work. The solution? Jason’s netbook. It’s small, lightweight and generally easier to deal with when all I really need to do is access my remote desktop. And fortunately now that we are married, it’s pretty much mine too!

2. A rose by any other name may not be as sweet. When Jason and I got married, I made the decision to change my last name.  The process itself was relatively painless and I took care of most of the major stuff (e.g., SSN, driver’s license, credit cards, utilities, etc.) pretty quickly last fall. However I neglected to change my frequent flier memberships. And apparently airlines are sticklers for things like the frequent flier name matching the name on the ticket. You can bet that I will be changing those this weekend! (Because as Jason said, “we’d better be getting something out of all of this.”)

3.Find the fun. Most of the time traveling for work sucks.  People are always like “oh you are going to Chicago, that is so fun!” What they don’t realize is that my trips are usually so quick that all I really see is the airport, the hotel, and (in some trips) state offices if I am lucky. But I learned that the only way to stay sane with all the upcoming travel is to find something fun to do or see or experience….especially in new places. This week, for example, I was in Vermont for all of 23 hours.  While 95% of my time was spent in the hotel, airport, and meeting I did manage to 1) eat some really awesome Chinese food (seriously….maybe some of the best I’ve ever had.  If you are ever in Burlington, check out A Single Pebble) and 2) go to the Ben and Jerry’s headquarters! We didn't have time to take a tour but we did swing by the gift shop and, of course, the scoop shop. I had tried out local favorite Hannah Teeter's Maple Blondie. Fortunately I had my camera phone to snap a few shots:

Bonus lesson: traveling for work this much is also a lot easier when you have a partner who is willing to help pick up the slack back at home. It was so nice coming home to a nice and (fairly) clean apartment to a husband who was nice enough to have done the dishes and some laundry while I was away

One week down…six more to go!