Where I’ve Been

In the air…

…and on the ground!

Hi, friends!  It’s been a whirlwind week around here.  I flew up to Michigan for my sister’s bridal shower, which went swimmingly yesterday.  But before we could shower Theresa in presents and good cheer, my brother John and his fiancé Thom got married on Saturday, in the short window during which same-sex marriage was happening in Michigan.  We celebrated their surprise nuptials on Saturday night with pizza and beer and balloons and a hand-finished banner.  I was finishing up the banner in the living room after they arrived while John was wondering, “Why is Rose-Anne doing arts and crafts right now?”  But they loved the decorations, and we loved celebrating with them.

Today I’m hoping to get my hair cut and spend a little time with my parents.  Yesterday I started feeling some cold symptoms, so I’m not at 100% right now.  But after coffee and a light breakfast, I do feel a bit better.  I am really looking forward to getting my mop trimmed—my hair is at the point where it just looks and feels like it lacks any kind of structure or style, and it is driving me nuts.  I need help, ASAP!

I’m glad I made the trip up to Michigan for the weekend, especially after what became my hardest travel experience yet.  My original flight was delayed and then canceled due to mechanical problems, and I wasn’t able to get out of Houston on Thursday.  I ended up on the 9 AM flight Friday morning.  Fortunately for me, my sweet friend Courtney was able to rescue me on Thursday afternoon after I spent eight hours in the airport.  (As a fun bonus, my suitcase went to Detroit without me, so I had no extra clothes or toiletries with me.  Yay!)  So my day on Thursday went from okay to awful to much, much better, once I left the airport.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of uncomfortable feelings lately, giving me sleepless nights and a zombie-like state during the day.  As you might remember, this year I started a new part-time job as a lab manager and I’ve continued tutoring privately (which I started in November 2013).  The lab manager gig is okay, I suppose—my boss is great, but the fact remains that I don’t want to work in a lab any more.  I’m tired of lab work.  Tutoring is awesome, but it is really hard to land tutoring gigs.  There’s not a huge demand for biology tutoring, and even when students do contact me, there are a lot of cancellations and reschedulings.  So my work life has been a source of distress for me because I’m not able to find enough business to move away from lab work.  I have been brainstorming ways to find more tutoring business, but clients remain elusive.

On top of my work disappointments, I’m feeling really anxious about money, which is causing problems between me and Paul.  We’re working through it, and I think we’ll come out on the other side stronger and with a deeper understanding of each other.  But it’s hard when he doesn’t understand my anxiety about money, therefore he doesn’t understand why I’m upset that things aren’t going more smoothly this year.  “Worry about today now; don’t worry about tomorrow until it’s here” is Paul’s attitude about money.  Me, on the other hand?  I live in a perpetual state of worrying about money.  I don’t know how to not worry about money.  I wish I did—I’d feel a lot better if I did.  But that anxiety is practically woven into my DNA.

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To my sweet blogger friends, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA this month.  I’m looking forward to catching up on your blogs and seeing what you’ve been doing!  Here’s hoping that spring brings with it some brighter days and lighter feelings after a long, cold winter of gloom.