One Week Down

Hi everyone (anyone?),
Sorry I've been away so long!  My last post was, I believe, Saturday 10/3 when I had come down with a cold.  I started my new job that Monday, and this is the first chance I've really had to return to you:)

So, thank you to everyone who prayed for me, because by Monday my fever had disappeared.  I made it through not only the first day, but the first week of work in tact!  I've successfully gotten up and dressed every morning without crashing, made it through every day so far without falling asleep at the office, and had an abundance of other little victories such as navigating SEPTA (our public transit system).  I know you, someone who reads my blog, understand that these achievements are harder-won than they should be.  On the subway, I usually have to stand for half the ride home, and now that I've started taking the bus instead of driving to the terminal, I have to stand outside in the cold (our weather took a bitter turn)...but so far I'm doing well with it!  Actually, I kind of like taking public transportation now...it can be a pain when I have a lot to carry, but I usually get a seat on the way in to work and the bus home, and letting someone else have the headache of maneuvering through traffic so I can sit in a mild brain fog is a real treat.

Now, being in my second week, I think I'm going to begin encountering the real test of getting up each morning...the first week was largely adreniline, and now the reality of changing my entire internal clock and not having the ability to rest mid-day is starting to set in.  This week I am unassigned at work, which means I sit in the base office and do virtually nothing all day, so staying alert isn't that big of a deal.  However next week I will begin work on my first client, and I will need to be on my game by then.  (Getting my first paycheck in 4 months this week will help that greatly, I'm sure:D.)  This weekend I have a full roster of things I need to do, so I'm really going to have to discipline myself to get them done during the day and sleep at  night consistently.

I don't know about you, but I find that if I have to get up at a certain time during the week, I have to continue that schedule over the weekend as well, which isn't that much fun.  I tried to "sleep in" on Saturday until 8AM, but by 7:50 I had been lying there awake so long I couldn't take it any more and got up.  It's frustrating when I'm awake for like 4 hours by the time Shawn is ready to consider waking up, but on the other hand it opens some other doors, such as a Saturday or Sunday morning yoga class I've been considering taking (especially now that I probably won't be able to do the Thursday night class regularly).  So, hopefully this will be a good thing.  I also suppose I could use that weekend morning time to try to do some food prep for later in the day/week so I can actually cook meals to bring in for lunch (buying lunch every day in the city is expensive, and for the same money I can do a weekly yoga class and even get a manicure every week if I want).  Furthermore, once I start on a client and don't have this excess of downtime during the day to work on my parish's youth ministry projects, I'll need those weekend mornings that much more. 

Well, that's basically where I'm at at this time.  I'll have to let you know more specifically how things are going once I get to a client and truly begin to do the job I've been hired for.  In the meantime this week, I'll try to do one or two other topic-specific posts like I had been doing.  I miss you all, write to me!