I went down to Rehoboth Beach again this past weekend. I go there every 6 months for a business function for one of my 12-step groups. This assembly was special since we had regional representatives from all over the world who came to share their experience, strength, and hope with us. I’ll be posting more about that in detail on my recovery blog. (Email me for the URL if you don’t have it - I like to stay pretty anonymous over there since I talk openly about the 12-step programs I’m in.)

One of the guys who went down to the assembly from my group got really ill right before we were set to leave. At first we thought he was just being dramatic and perhaps a bit of a hypochondriac. He thought he was dehydrated, and wanted to go to a hospital. He doesn’t drive, so he was depending on the person who provided his transportation to take him to the hospital. Rehoboth Beach is about 3 hours away from home for all of us, so the woman who was his ride was in a bit of a quandary. She wanted to do the right thing, but she wasn’t sure where her responsibility as his ride began and ended. In the end, she decided to take him to the hospital and stay with him until she got news of his status.

Turns out, it was a good thing she stayed - our friend’s kidneys went into failure and he was unconscious and on a ventilator for some time. We were all pretty worried about what was going to happen to him, but today he had a miraculous turn for the better. He’s awake and in good spirits; I’m so grateful.

That whole experience was so surreal and I haven’t been able to get my mind off of it. I was so relieved when I got the good news this afternoon. Hopefully it will continue to be good news.

I also had some other excitement today. My new cell phone came in! I got the Samsung SCH u740 and I am absolutely in love with this thing. I can’t stop playing with it! I made sure to send Colleen a text message right away to show off my newfound texting prowess. I think she was duly impressed. Which? Was not a shocker. My texting brings all the boys to the yard, you know what I’m sayin’? Yaeah.

All kinds of good stuff is happening at work now, too. I can’t really go into too many details about it here, but I will tell you about Google soon, I promise!

… is the hardest part. Good song, true words.

I found out yesterday that we most likely won’t be able to do anything about our Virginia dream any time soon. It probably won’t be happening next summer like I was hoping. I’m bummed, but I’m not giving up hope. I am also turning it all over and knowing that whatever happens is meant to happen for my own good. I’m still going to do the footwork - the dream is not entirely dead - and we’ll see what happens.

In other news, the switch to marketing is kicking my butt time-wise. I’m still in that transitional phase where I’m doing a lot of the stuff I was doing before in addition to doing lots of new things. It’s all good, though - I love the days going by so fast and being involved more in the operations of the company. I’m just not used to this pace, which explains the drastic reduction of posting here.

So I went into work yesterday and was called in to meet the new VP of Marketing almost immediately. We chatted for about 15 minutes and she said, “Why are you not in marketing? You should be over here. I want you here.”

Since I’ve been with the company for 8 years and in the IT department for 7 of them, I wasn’t expecting anything to change. After all, I’ve been asking to go to the marketing department for at least 5 years now. So when she came over to my office 1/2 hour later and said, “Welcome to marketing. I just talked to the owner and he was all for you coming over”, I was momentarily stunned. I think my jaw is still on the floor. However, it’s on the floor in my old office because I have already moved. Is your head spinning? Because mine sure is!

I now have a new boss, a new(ish) job, a new office, and I’m in a new department. I did not expect that to happen when I came back to work from vacation this week! My mind is still reeling from it all, and I’m still just sort of feeling my way around and taking things as they come for now. My new boss seems to be fantastic and I’m excited to work for her. My office now has a window, so my newest high class problem will be having a glare on my computer screen unless I close my blinds.

It’s barely past 8 PM on Friday night, and I’m ready for bed. All of this change has simply exhausted me!

These are trying times. Lots of stuff going on at work - I’ve been working longer hours and I’ve got more demands on me than I feel like I ever have. I’m honestly not sure how much longer I can go at this pace. Something has to change. Hopefully it will soon.

I just wanted to let you all know that I’m not dead or injured or anything like that. I just barely have time to do the things I need to do to survive in a healthy manner, let alone even think about blogging. I’ve been so drained that I’m just sort of watching the online world right now, and not participating in it. I noticed there’s lot of drama all around, and I feel so removed from it all. The drama is very tiring, too, especially after spending a weekend away with a bunch of people in recovery that don’t participate in that type of behavior any more. Here’s two things to ask yourself:

• How important is it?
• Is this worth losing my serenity over?

The answer to that second question is almost always, “No” for me. It helps to put things in perspective so I don’t go off the deep end.

Wow, little tangent there.

Anyway, life is still good. I have a lot to be grateful for, I’m just in a confusing and scary middle place right now where work is concerned and it’s affecting my serenity. I think I need to follow my own advice and ask myself those two questions on a daily (hourly!) basis where this is concerned. And you know what? Having an Internet break is actually not such a bad thing. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll one day just turn this thing on to check email every now and then, and that’s it. In fact, I kinda like that idea.

I’m slowly coming out of my funk. Thanks to everyone who wrote to me and/or left comments here. It was truly appreciated.

Things at work are really rough. I used to have a whole team of people working for me. This week, the last two of them gave their notice. I’ll be able to replace those bodies, though, so it’s not all horrible, but it will be a pain getting the new people up to speed with no one left here who is intimate with code.

I’ve been getting various weird skin ailments. First it was the poison ivy - which turned out to not be a very bad case at all, hardly any itching!. Then I got some weird rash between my boobs. I’ve been treating it with anti-fungal stuff and it seems to be getting better. So basically I had jock itch between by tatas. Who wants a piece of me??? Now I’ve got really dry, itchy skin on my eyelids and on the outer corners of my eyes. What in the world?

Speaking of weird skin stuff - Grace has something going on, too. The underside of her snout has these weird lumpy things - I have no idea how to describe it really. Which is hell on a Google search. How am I supposed to be an Internet Veterinarian if I can’t come up with the right search terms? Seriously.

We had our family portraits taken this past Saturday. There were 14 of us and we all wore white shirts and blue jeans. Cute, right? Well, I think it looked okay in the pictures, but walking through the mall was a whole ‘nother story. I’m going to post that soon, I swear. I’ll post the pics, too.

Until then…