Incredibly busy....

I haven't fallen off the face of the planet but I haven't had much time during work hours to write and work has been so busy that I have felt like face-planting my bed immediately upon arrival at home.

We are in the frenzy of hiring for Spring term which necessitates a lot of paperwork. I've had furniture installs off and on for several weeks. Currently, they are installing the high density storage units which meant we had to move 12 5-drawer lateral file cabinets out of the file room and into our office space while they did so. It's a bit of a pain but it's only for a couple of days.

The billing on the furniture and moving expenses is turning into a huge headache. Most of it is supposed to be processed through the Facilities budget but I made the orders so I have been getting all the bills and they aren't getting paid when I send them over. It's incredibly frustrating for me and for the vendors.

I've joined the Dean's council (as part of my job) and we are working on the organizational structure, governance committees, RTFs (grants) for technology, reporting structure etc, etc, etc. These are heavy duty meetings and often require a lot of work afterwords. This time I had to put together a complete list of faculty positions, the classification, the FTE, and the discipline area.

I also am wrapping up some year end stuff. We have a full year of test data that needed to be sorted by test subject (I think 24 different tests) and then the competency areas (up to 18 per test) had to have the scores averaged to give a valid assessment that can be used to inform instruction.

And today, the request for public information that we've been hoping to avoid came it. It's about 40 hours of work to collate all the information they want and we know they are trying to use it to discredit us. It's not a good faith situation and it's really frustrating to have to put so much time into something that is not beneficial. Besides, who has 40 hours to do it in the next 10 days? I've parsed it out to as many people as I can but now I'll have to ride herd on the whole thing. UGH!

By the time I get home my brain hurts. Last night I immediately ran a hot bath, put bath salts in it, and laid in it with a washcloth over my face until I felt a little more human.

I'm also struggling with what I want to do and what I think I want to accomplish. I know that sounds strange but here is the situation. I have a HUGE cross stitch project (22" x 6" on 18 count AIDA) that has been languishing for years. I promised it to my brother when we were still in school. It's beautiful and I really want to get it done. However, it's very slow and tedious and does not bring a whole lot of satisfaction- simply because there never seems to be any progress. I've been working on it all week and I think if you put it all together I've gotten about 3 square inches done. I also have several beautiful cross-stitch patterns I'd like to see done...but the doing them is uncertain. The second pair of mitts that I'm working on for my aunt is 3/4 done but it's hard to do the same project twice (the puppy ate the first pair before she even had a chance to wear them) so it's my lunch time knitting for the two days I don't have water aerobics. I also want to work on some embroidery for my garb- also rather slow and often hard to see progress.

On the other hand, there are a lot of knitting projects I want to do for myself! I finally gave in and started knitting a baby item for my new Godson in utero last night. I think it will be fast and fun and will give me a sense of accomplishment. However, I really want to work on some lace projects. That's what I love to do. *sigh* What to do?

Added to this is the extra support that my family is needing right now. My dad had total shoulder replacement last Monday. Due to his nueropathy in his feet, he is rather unstable which makes him rather dangerous by himself. Mom is reluctant to leave him so I've been running a few errands. Mom also needs help doing some of the things that she and dad usually managed to get done together. Also, my Uncle Mike, who had a complete colectomy last Tuesday suddenly developed a partial bowel blockage which is serious for his condition and he is back in the hospital indefinitely. Andrea, his daughter, is at a rehab center trying to become more self sufficient while he was recovering from surgery but she may not be able to stay the length of time that he will now need. Hopefully, they do a really good job so she's not an additional burden when she goes back home. She's making good progress.

There is a lot of worry on my mind about all these situations. I could really use my own support system now but more than ever I feel alone.