Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Catching up with Monday

It has been a Monday. Wow. I've been running all day from one thing to another. But, I accomplished a lot at the office. I went to see Julie at lunchtime and had a productive afternoon at work.

Tonight I went to see a presentation on Laura Ingalls Wilder by Dr. Sara Jane Richter. It was part of the Arts and Humanities Council's Women's History Month programming.

This was very different than the Emily Dickinson thing a couple of weeks ago. She just read a presentation about her, didn't play her, but it was good.

I needed to be home working on things, but I really wanted to go to that.

I've been going every minute since I got home, too. I had to make lemon curd for the Altrusa tea tomorrow, as well as gather up some more things for the event. I'm so glad this is my last event to be in charge of for Altrusa. I always seem to end up doing what seems like more than my fair share of things. Maybe it only seems that way to me. Regardless, this is my last event as a committee chair and I'm glad.

I feel like I've contributed to some really successful events, but I'm very happy to step aside and let someone else make them their own in the coming years. We agree to do a two year term and this is the last thing I have in my two years. We have some great people on our committee, but it just seems there are some things that fall into my area of expertise and so I end up with a lot on my schedule - from making lemon curd to creating books. Overall I have failed miserably in my number one task, which is to encourage others in leadership. My style just doesn't work well in this particular structure. So, I'm going to just enjoy the group and not take on any more projects. It will no doubt make us all happier.

It has been a wild few days.

Friday morning I learned that my friend, Julie, was in the hospital. Her daughter had called me the night before but I missed the call and didn't get the message until the next day. Julie had a stroke at work on Thursday. She is fine, and we are all so thankful for that. She went home today.

She was rushed to the ER by ambulance and given the clot busting drug and it worked perfectly for her. Amazingly, she has suffered no long term effects from the stroke. They say she is "fully recovered." She has normal speech, brain function and no paralysis. That drug is a miracle. She has been on my mind constantly.

Greg's girlfriend Mia was here this weekend and so while she was beading in the living room Saturday night I worked on the tree. Greg helped me with the tree and we made some major progress on getting it down. I realize most people get their Christmas trees down long before now. I swore I was not going to work on it until I had a full weekend with nothing else on the agenda. In mid March that had not yet happened, so I decided to just go ahead and do it. Now my living room is trashed, as is part of the kitchen where the tree bag is, and I'm not done. I worked on it a bit tonight. But another couple of hours and I will be done. The ornaments are packed away, some of the lights are off and some of the tree is dismantled. So, progress has been made.

I did get a lot accomplished around the house this weekend - lots of little jobs. And getting started on the tree was huge.

I also went out and picked most of my hyacinths and daffodils. It's supposed to get down to 22 tonight so I don't think they'll survive that. There have been lots of bad storms in Kansas, but we've been fine here.


Well, I have an early meeting and it's already 1:30 a.m. I was going to be in bed by 11 tonight. But, I wasn't done making lemon curd by then, much less other things. But I do need to go get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a very long day with a busy work day and then going straight to the tea at 5 and I'll be there until 9 or so. Then I have a 7:15 meeting on Wednesday morning. Why does there never seem to be enough time for me to sleep?