Christmas Gifts

A busy day at work resulting from some new government regulations caused me to come home exhausted and needing a nap before pressing on to wrap Christmas gifts. I am left wondering if there will ever be an end to my "to do list" and if I can ever have an evening to myself?

Long Day

It was the kind of day where you wake up looking forward to the hour you can come home and collapse. The bad thing was that just as I neared quiting time, I encountered an issue which resulted in me coming home and having to work until 7:30 pm. I am now really tired.

My "pic of the day" is of Kitty making himself at home under the Christmas tree.

Jayhawk Territory

I had to go to Lawrence today to the main University of Kansas campus for a work meeting today. While I was there, I just had to hunt down a pic of their mascot, the Jayhawk, to take a pic of after having been an employee and student at their rival school, MU, for so many years!

New Office

My "pic of the day" is of my new office at KU Med. It's essentially a blank slate except for the small bookshelf of mine that I brought in located in the far right corner of my first pic. I wanted to take some pics before I started to move in my personal stuff and decorate so I could log the transformation.

First task is to take down as many bulletin boards as possible.

Flurries

Snow flurries greeted us on this last day of November as Paul drove me to work this morning. It was a flurry of a day back at my new job. There were so many things to do and it was one of those days where "once in a blue moon things" and weirdo problems seemed to be the theme of the day. However, at lunchtime we all went down to the main lobby of our building to watch a Native American dance demonstration. Oh, how I wish I had my camera!

My "pic of the day" is of our U-Haul as we were trying to unpack it on Nov. 19th . I would have posted these sooner on my blog, but we lost my camera in the moving shuffle and Paul recovered it this afternoon as he unpacked more of the boxes. It looks like complete chaos because we had to cram the last pieces in wherever they would fit without boxes.

Not Feeling Well

On my second day of work I woke up feeling like I was getting sick with a sinus deal, not fun. I have continued to feel worse throughout the day and am thankful that we got out early at 2 pm for Thanksgiving because I came home and crashed on the bed - sleeping only 30 minutes but just lying still for over two hours.

Good First Day!

Today was my first day at KU Med and I was able to jump right into some immigration questions. I've found all my colleagues to be really nice and professional, and I enjoyed the lunch they planned that we all had together. I did a lot of orienting myself to my new office and work surroundings, and that combined with the newness of our apartment and trying to orientate myself to my new home surroundings has left me really tired. I was glad that the work day was over at 4:30 pm and that I was home by 5 pm, which gave Paul and me time to try out the apartment complex gym and still have an evening.

Final Phase of Moving

T'was the night before moving day and all through the house, not a thing was left unpacked, not even a blouse.

I wish that were true, but we are about 90% packed I would say and the movers come to load it into the U-Haul tomorrow morning at 9 am, and we are due in Kansas City to unload with movers there at about 2 pm. Just to add a little fun to my morning I have a dentist appt. at 10 am...will be glad this time tomorrow night when we are unloaded and in our new apartment!

Today was my last day at work and I had a good turn out at our farewell party at the Heidelberg after work. My "pic of the day" is of some of the boxes we have to navigate around in our apartment.

Meals

After a long day of back-to-back appointments and grading papers, I enjoyed a nice dinner with my husband and the student who is my peer leader for one of the classes I teach. We had a good time at our last meal at FlatBranch together before heading to KC. In addition, I had a nice lunch with one of the faculty members from my department today too.

Phase 3 of Moving

Phase 3 of moving has brought about boxes galore to our apartment while our living area bears a faint resemblance to the tidy humble abode we once had. I came home from work at 6:30 pm tonight and boxed up my closet, bathroom cabinet, living room decor, cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink and a few fragile items on my desk. My "pic of the day" is of all the hangers I had after I boxed up the clothes hanging in my closet!

The bright side is that before I left work, I had wrangled my work email down to just 35 emails in my inbox, opposed to the nearly 150 average I have been keeping for most of the month.

It's hard to believe that in 48 hours everything must be ready to go!

Work & Home

After 11 student appointments today and a quick triage of my email, I was ready to call it a day at 5:45 pm this evening. My mom came down today to help us move into the next phase of moving and really get into the heart of packing. I feel so blessed because while I was at work all day my mom and husband packed, and my husband took my car for an oil change, gassed it up and my mom made soup for dinner which has been simmering all day and the aroma of the soup greeted me as I walked in the door this evening.

Warm Day

Today was a run, run, run day with 13 student advising appointments, two classes to teach and a doctor's appointment to end the day. In addition I've been spending my evening back on work email. On a positive note, it was a beautiful warm November day.

Home Stretch

Another long 10 hour work day dominated my day. Paul and I have entered the home stretch with single digit days signifying the countdown to our moving day.

Weekend At Last

I arrived home exhausted after a really busy week filled with too many demands and too many commitments. I'm so thankful to have started my weekend and for it to be an extra hour long due to the time change.

Colder

Today we reached some milestones at work as over 1000 students have made appts. between the 4 advisors and our director at work. In addition, we reached the 500 mark of declared health sciences students! No wonder it has been a long and busy semester and early registration period.

The weather changed over the course of the day as it got colder and the wind started blowing. I was very thankful for the hot chocolate and chat with a good friend in a local coffee shop tonight.

Busy

Just a busy day of working 10 hrs and getting ready to leave and go back into work for a student organization meeting this evening.

Motion

I've been moving so fast in my job today that even as I sit still to type this I still feel like I'm moving in a swirl of constant motion. Today we've made some progress on finding sources for free boxes (namely HyVee). Other than seeing lots of students and receiving oodles of emails, all I know is that we're trying to organize two BonVoyage parties.

Countdown

We have entered the countdown phase of days left in Columbia before our move. From today, we have 16 days left until we move with 12 days left at work. After booking the U-Haul, movers and advertising our apt. for subletting, we are now at the stage of looking for freebie moving boxes and starting to think about what we can get rid of. Cleaning out our closets actually happens at a really good time because a student association on campus is collecting garage sale items for a fundraiser all this week. In other news, I had a long 10 hour day as we are at the beginning of the early registration season.

My "pic of the day" is of a couple from our Halloween party.

Long Day

We woke up to a very cool and crisp morning beckoning layers and a jacket. I left work at 6:30 pm tonight following a long day with many student appointments.

To follow-up from yesterday's post, the shooter has been apprehended.

Roll on Grey's Anatomy for part of my recovery evening from the long day.

Appointment Central

We have now entered early registration season at work, and this one is proving to be one of the busiest yet. We have had to shorten the appointments from 30 minutes to 20 minutes in order to incorporate more students per hour. On Friday I had 13 back-to-back student appointments and tomorrow I have a record high of 16 appointments. In addition to appointments today, we received notification that University Hospital was on lock down due to a possible murderer entering the facility, and apparently he is still at large and the rest of the University remains uneasy.

In other news, Paul and I finished our 5 week marriage class at church this evening, and that's what inspired my "pic of the day" as we were told that God uses marriage to change and mold us into being more Christlike, kind of like this blacksmith working with metal.