Tough week...

The joys and excitement from the circus last weekend is gone and this past week has left me feeling burned out and exhausted...

There has been lots of "drama" at work this past week and it's only feeling as if it's going to be worse going into this week.  My assistant director didn't do much assisting this past week as she had different reasons to only work half days or less and she will be on vacation for the next week and a day so I will be on my own (and then she'll be back for 2.5 weeks before she's out for at least another week to have surgery and recovery).  My boss (the founder of the program) has been out of country for the last couple of weeks on vacation and I'm not sure exactly when she's coming back into the building.  I just feel as if I've found myself in a similar situation to the job I just left; where I feel as if it's up to me to accomplish all of the work, putting in too many hours for too little pay, and I'm the only one being held to that standard.  I just don't understand it even though I find myself in the midst of allowing it to happen - again.

It also didn't help this past week that I went to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to switch my driver's license and car registration - only to be told I didn't have the necessary paperwork with me and I would need to come back.  In complete frustration, I called Mom on the way to pick up the needed paperwork so I could get things taken care of and I had a complete and utter hissy fit over the phone.  I was irritated/annoyed at the situation and myself and I took it out on her (which I did apologize for later).  Rather than looking at it as a bureaucracy and there is always going to be red tape, I seemed to internalize it as a personal failure of mine for the screw up.  Because I was so worked up, I was afraid I was going to fail the knowledge test I needed to take in order to switch my license.  I missed fewer than the number I was allowed to miss and only slightly obsessed over the answers I got wrong...

One of the things that was a plus from this past week is I used some of my "training" from my childhood in two different instances at work.  Growing up, my parents did Christian clowning where they would transform into their clown characters, go into churches and teach Bible lessons.  Because of this, my siblings and I had some unique childhood experiences where we got to not only attend clown conventions but got to participate in the different classes on clown make-up, balloon animals/sculptures, magic, puppetry, etc.  (How many of you can admit to doing that?!)  So what could I possibly have used from that at work this week?  One day I walked into a class just to see what they were up to and one of the teachers was attempting to make balloon animals for the kids based on instructions that came with the balloons and she had never made one before - needless to say, it wasn't going very well for her so I jumped in and assisted (I wasn't sure if I still could make balloon animals still since it's been years and years but I did pretty well with it).

Another opportunity I had was on Friday when it came time to lead chapel for the kids; with about 10 minutes to prepare, I threw something together and it turned out that it worked really well!  At my previous job, I had used a "draw and tell" book where you draw small parts of a picture as you tell the story and you have an overall picture at the end.  When I found out that I would be leading chapel, I wondered if there were "draw and tell" Bible stories for kids so I typed it into an online search engine and found one that I thought I could do.  I told the story, introduced the basic sign language to "Jesus Loves Me" (since Valentine's Day is coming up) and then led a basic prayer.  In the two different chapels I led (each one had two of our older age group classes), I had kids tell me that it was the "best-est" and "fun-est" chapel ever!  I have ordered the book to go along with the Bible "draw and tell" stories in anticipation that I will be leading chapel again in the upcoming weeks.

In an attempt to not come across as overly whiny and/or pathetic (as I am currently feeling and am in jeopardy of putting some of those thoughts/feelings out there), I think I am going to bring this to a close for tonight, hopefully push some of those thoughts from my mind, and get ready for the week ahead.  I hope you embrace opportunities for you and that you can find ways to bring yourself job - I am going to attempt to do the same...  Thank you for joining me, my dear readers.