What time is it? What day is it? Where am I?

What time is it?  What day is it?  Where am I?

These have been some very real questions I have ask myself in the last 36 hours or so...  I was out of town all last week for work, flew back Friday night, had to go into work to complete my travel paperwork (at about 10:30 pm), and then flew out yesterday morning bright and early to head home for the holidays.  After flying all day yesterday and on three different planes, I have no idea what time it is...  The three hour time difference doesn't necessarily help with my confusion but I'll figure it out in another day or so.  One of the neat things about being in and out of my little airport over the last week is the same person helped me through security when I left for work and when I left again yesterday and she commented on my personal "style" stating that she wished she was brave enough to be as cool as I am.  That made me smile.  =)

I was joking last night with my brother and sister-in-law that when I have to head back after the holidays, I'm going to have to get back to my apartment via Canada and Japan or something because I was able to make it to my work training and back and then here without any travel issues.  I did have to walk briskly through one airport since I flew into one branch and flew out of another branch of the airport and only had about 30 minutes from when I got off the plane and the next one was boarding.  Luckily this happens to be an airport I fly through often when I travel so I know it well.  I was able to make it with about five minutes to spare so I felt pretty good about that.

Since I didn't really know what time it was today, it was nice that my parent's dog let me sleep in and be a little bit lazy this morning.  I did have to get up and moving at some point to run to the store to pick up some medication.  Because I have been on six different flights in a week and the weather has been crazy, I woke up this morning with a lot of sinus pressure (feeling as if I got punched in one eye and a sore ear), I figured I should pick up some sinus pressure/pain medication.  I ran to the store, came back to their house to take some of the medication and then took their dog for a walk.  My parents are currently visiting their parents out of state so I'm house sitting for them for a couple of days.  What's nice about it is, by the time they're back, I will be completely adjusted to the time change and will have had an opportunity to help out with one of my nephews.  While I was out buying medicine, I also bought what he and are going to need to make playdough when he's here on Tuesday - it will probably be an adventure but hopefully a fun one (yes, I'm going to let the 3 1/2 year old help make the playdough).  =)

Thinking about it, I did have an adventure with travel this last week...  I arrived where I was attending training and I asked the person at the car rental place how to find where I was staying.  Her response of "oh, that's easy..." before she proceeded to give me directions gave me a sense of security that I trusted.  I ended up in the wrong area, called the hotel where they gave me the wrong directions, called the hotel again, they gave me different directions, I got on base where I couldn't find the hotel and ended up cornering two guys who were talking in a parking lot to see if they could help me.  Luckily, they were able to direct me where I was going and I was able to get checked into the hotel.  Now, this was not a "normal" hotel where all the rooms are in one building; no, they had like five buildings to this hotel and it took me a bit to find the one I was staying in.  After it was all said and done, I found my room, I looked across the street and I was never more thankful to see a restaurant in my life - there was a Subway right across from the building I was staying in and the neon light was calling to me like a beacon.  After I found the training center the next day, I realized that from the airport to the hotel should have taken me about 15 minutes (maybe a little longer with traffic) and it took me, in the dark, just about 2.5 hours....  Maybe because of that stress, the travel gods took pity on me.....

The training I attended for work this past week was an absolutely fascinating one.  Before I left, I had a couple of co-workers tell me that I was going to be bored with the course but I went into it with an open mind and I'm glad I did.  I have taken a few other courses from the facilitator of the course so it was nice going into it with that level of comfortability.  The course was designed to give information to new managers information that will assist them in finding their way as a manager (I have been a manager for about two years now).  I was able to learn a lot of new information and was able to pass along some of my findings (some positives and negatives I've learned in the last two years) to the other people in the course.  I was very glad to have had the opportunity to attend even though I was fighting going a little with being right before my vacation.  I will be interested to see how this new information assists me going back into work after the first of the year.

Well, my dear readers, I'm going to bring this to a close for the evening; I need to get ready to feed the dog and scrounge something up for dinner (luckily Mom left some things for me in the freezer before they went on their quick trip).  Have a wonderful evening and thanks for joining me again!  =)