Handy

Let me begin by saying that I am super sore and sunburned after my week so we'll see how this post goes...  I spent everyday at work this past week moving large pieces of furniture (in a storage shed to make room, take pieces of furniture into the storage shed and then moved large pieces of different furniture from my office and into a new office space - that had to be taken apart and reassembled) and I found out just how un-handy people are that I work with.  They couldn't believe that there could be times you would have to lay on your back to take things apart and to then reassemble them or that I wouldn't just throw away a table that was "broken" (they tried to scoot it across the floor with a full tabletop and one of the legs snapped off - but it was totally fixable - yay me!).  One of the girls actually told me that she didn't have to know how to assemble furniture because she always just calls her Dad - my Dad made sure I knew how to do it myself -- thanks, Dad!!

So if that wasn't enough of a beating to put my body through, yesterday was our outdoor work event and I was at work at about 6:45 am and didn't leave until about 3:30 pm.  Most of my day was spent running around outside and by 10:30 am, I had already put in my daily goal of 10,000 steps and ended up with about 25,000 steps by the end of the day (that's the equivalent of 10 miles or so).  Even though I applied sunscreen, I ended up with a sunburn.  If that wasn't bad enough, one of the kids from the program challenged me to go through the obstacle course boot camp bounce house and then one of my staff challenged me at the end of the day.  I tried telling them that they really didn't want an "old" (almost 35), fat lady to go through it but they encouraged me to be a good sport.  I kept feeling as if I was loosing my pants, I struggled through it and I pulled/twisted something in my bad knee and ankle.  The kids who challenged me was awesome; he kept stopping as we went through this monstrosity of a bounce house and said, "I'll wait right here for you, Ms. Gypsy so I don't beat you by too much..."  I thought that was very sweet of him even though I felt like a beached whale going through the course (both times).

It was a fun (and exhausting) event and my boss came towards the end.  She was thoroughly impressed with the turnout (we had just over 1000 bottles of water and ended the day with less than 300 left over) and we had a steady flow of people across the four hours of the event (with an influx of people around lunch time - the event was free and we were serving free food, too).  I was very excited about how well it went and was proud of my staff who stuck it out.  This was the biggest turnout we've had for an event like this and it was super hot yesterday (in the 80's which is really hot for here) and we were outside the whole time.

After the event (if that wasn't enough), I came home, flopped on my bed (I was glad I set my alarm) and I passed out for about 20 minutes.  I knew I couldn't sleep for long since I had a dance gig to get ready for.  The troupe was going to perform one number at the gig and I had received a frantic text message from the coordinator of the gig telling me that someone cancelled last minute and she begged me to solo as well.  When I woke up, I went to head to the shower and I couldn't really walk.  My knee was so stiff that I need up practically crawling to the shower and had it as scalding as I could stand from the waist down for 10 minutes (had to then cool off the water because of my sunburn).  The shower helped but my knee was still pretty stiff.  I took some pain meds, transformed into my other self, and headed towards the dance gig.  I got part way there and got turned around by state troopers - the road was closed.  I ended up taking an alternate route and arrived at the site just as the clock struck 6 (which was our call time).  My solo was in the first half of the show and the troupe danced second to last of the entire show.  I was hoping to be able to dance and go but was there for the entire thing.

As I began to dance my solo, I had to improvise some of it because as I was moving, my knee was becoming more and more stiff (and that was scary since she had asked me to do my sword solo).  I had people tell me that I did a good job with the solo but I did have one person come up to me and asked if I was injured because they could see it on my face towards the end of my song.  I was kicking myself for letting it show on my face but there's nothing I can do about it now.  The troupe dance was my favorite choreography and it's our one with the most attitude so it was okay if I grimaced a time or two.  I was very glad that I took today to relax (other than running a couple of errands) and my knee is feeling a little better, it's not 100% but better.

While I was disassembling and reassembling furniture at work this week, I gave some thought to the question I posed last week (who am I?) but I haven't come up with a solid conclusion yet.  I am planning on giving it some more thought in this upcoming week.  I think it is time for me to take some more pain meds for my knee and attempt to get some sleep tonight; tomorrow is going to be a crazy day since all of the higher-ups are coming in to my building just to check things out so everything has to be just right.  I hope you all have a good week full of muchness opportunities for each of you!  =)