It’s been a very full week

I’m sitting here in my living room, listening to the rain and howling winds outside, and happy to be home safe and sound.

This was a crazy week. On Monday-Wednesday I was scrambling to work on transition things for my job. Way too many problems were cropping up that seemed to require me to resolve and I tried to use them as “teachable moments” to help show other staff how to think through and troubleshoot them. That takes a lot more time than just doing it myself.

I was also working like a crazy person to get ready for my trip to Louisiana to be part of a regional chapter meeting. I had three different things to do – a luncheon presentation, participating in a panel, and moderating another panel. It took time to get my act together and get it all organized – not to mention deciding what to wear!

Airport travel always opens the door to uncontrolled eating for me. It’s as though nothing there has any calories or points and I can eat whatever I want. They don’t feed us on planes anymore and I’m overcompensating. To make it to the airport before the Thurs. storm, I was up at 3:30am and waiting for a cab at 5:15.

I ate two breakfasts that day, neither one particularly satisfying. I also found a sandwich to eat on the next leg of the flight only to discover on board that the whole sandwich had something ridiculous like 830 calories with 38 gms of fat. Even I couldn’t eat it after that – I ate some bits and picked out the chicken in it, and ended up with indigestion anyway. It was like punishment for messing up.

This group really enjoys being together and there were excellent programs and two wonderful receptions – one at an art museum with a view of the Mississippi River out the window, and the Friday one was at the LSU Rural Life Museum. We had Cajun music and food amidst a fascinating setting with relocated buildings telling the story of earlier times.

The vegetation of all kinds was rich with color, especially to someone living up where the grass is still brown. The air was soft and humid, with little ripples of air moving through the leaves. While the setting was rich, the buildings were aged and worn and showed poverty and lean times. This picture was of the bridge into the area of old slave cabins.

Returning home was supposed to be relatively easy – a flight to Dallas and from there, to Boston. Good plan, didn’t work. By the time I got to the airport, my flights had been canceled “for operational reasons.” I called the 800 number and got no information or possibilities of changing my rearranged schedule, which started with a 5:45 am. flight out.

The wonderful ticket agents, though, refused to accept that option and managed to find me a flight through Chicago, getting me home 3 hours before my scheduled time. It seems my original plane for the Dallas-Boston leg was damaged by hail which is an excellent reason not to fly in it.

But I was nervous about flying THROUGH that weather, and it turns out that getting home last night was the greatest blessing since hundreds of flights were canceled today – I might not have gotten home for days!

I went to my WW meeting this morning and was thrilled to only have gained 1 lb after two weeks of very loosely following the plan. Now it’s a new day, a new week, and I start over. I spent the rest of today doing as little as possible, recovering from the traveling, because tomorrow morning I’m off to CT through the rain to try and find a place to live. Wish me luck!