A week's worth of updates

I've been the strong, silent type lately . . . well, silent anyway.  Sorry about that. We've had lots going on, but more than that, I've just not been in the best of moods and didn't want to spread it around.  I'll say right now that I haven't worked out since walking about 20 minutes on Saturday. I haven't run at all.  And I've had a bit of a relapse with my arm flexibility and use. My left arm has regressed to pre-Christmas mobility and I'm not sure why. Nothing traumatic happened, it just started being gimpy and then I found I didn't have the flexibility anymore either. I guess I'll have to make that physical therapy appointment again.

To catch you up - Val and I had a girls' weekend last weekend. We drove to Virginia to surprise a family friend for her baby shower. We had such a good time, just us girls. And it was fun to surprise Susan and to see how Val was so happy to see her.  Susan was Val's first babysitter and they have had a bond her whole life, all 11+ years. Susan now lives in Virginia, is married, and teaching 2nd grade, I think. But she's still a die-hard Buckeye fan so we got her lots of baby buckeye stuff. Val even gave her an OSU headband she wore as a little girl. At Ken's suggestion, we also took Graeter's ice cream, which was a HUGE hit, of course.

We got lucky getting our trip in between snow storms.  The kids were off school on Monday for President's Day and then Tuesday and Wednesday for snow days.

So none of this explains why I've been in a bad mood. I had fun over the weekend, but then had a tough days at work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Things were looking bleak, since I've become Director, we've lost 3 FTE from my area and taken on new functions, too. Of course, we haven't dropped any of the old work, either. It's enough to make me question whether I'm doing such a great job at this new role. Could someone more politically savvy or personally more effective done something to keep our group at full strength? I also had a negative thing happen where I felt another group took away an application I created so they could use it for their purposes and they altered it so I couldn't use it for what I needed. And the kicker is that I still have to support it and use it as they have defined. I have to create a new application and process now for doing my work. It was not a good week.

Today was good, though.  It certainly put things in perspective. We had a Diversity workshop done by the National Coalition Building Institute. The training was excellent and was led by a previous work colleague who I haven't seen in a long time, along with the husband of a current colleague and another OSU employee.  They were very good and the group was engaged and diverse in many ways. It helped me put things in to perspective.

I'm in HR.  It's about the H - the humans - us people. We are what matters. How I track my project decisions and whether my work needs are important to other groups is really not critical in the real scheme of things. I still think I was mistreated this week, but hey, nothing compared to some of the stories of discrimination I heard today.  And, honestly, nothing compared to other times when I have been mistreated in  my life. So I got over it. I'll create yet another process (third time's a charm) to manage the work for this new role I have.  Eventually something will stick and I'll get in a groove with it, I hope.

I don't have to go to work tomorrow. It's Valerie's regional swim meet weekend and she swims Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I'll be there with her tomorrow, but Jason will be at school and Ken at work. I might officiate since Val really doesn't need me to take care of her and she can hang out with her friends.

It will be a long weekend. I hope I can get some down time.