I did it!

Okay, so as you have noticed, all three of my loyal readers, I have not blogged in a bit...but this is for good reason.

I think I mentioned before how I was offered a promotion here at school that would extend my contract from 9 mo. to 12 mo. with the hope to be renewable for our last year in Ann Arbor. KW and I talked a lot about it and decided that he would not pursue more lucrative or exciting job internships for the summer so we could be together and have some sort of reliable income.

After he took a part time internship, my boss decided to tell me the money for my promotion was not there and the best he could offer me was 11 months. That meant one month of no money and no insurance. He said that he thought I could be with KW that one month off. Yeah, that would have been great if he was supposed to be somewhere but when I asked my boss to give me the go ahead for the promotion I told him that KW would stay here. He forgot...I was peeved.

I started my self doubt ritual: maybe I wasn't doing good enough work, what if when I was gone they realized they didn't need me and they didn't rehire me....yadda yadda yadda. So I resolved to work my tail off. I took on projects outside of my jurisdiction, cattle prodded people to get work done faster and better, and tried to make sure that people outside of my office (you know, the ones that hold the purse strings) saw that I was invaluable.

And it worked.

They found the money and I am going to be on a 12 month contract. Now I want to celebrate but I haven't signed anything yet...and I don't want to celebrate to have things fall through again (I know this is normal with big institutional non profits...I'm just used to smaller ones).

Usually, I work about 8 hours a day (normal), several nights, and a Saturday or Sunday each week since I started working here....this past two weeks, I have been working 10 hours a day, all nights (except maybe one if I was lucky), and all weekend. These two weeks have also included events I hated going to, work that I have had to be on my feet for 3 days straight, and a lot of "happy hard work."

definition: Happy Hard Work [hap-ee hahrd wurk] noun, adjective, verb. [origins: unknown, believed to be parents of Roaming Southerner]
1.) Doing extra hard, long tasks with smile on face and cheery phrases such as "Oh no, this is fun!" "It keeps things interesting" "At least I won't need to work out today" "I love it here!" coming out of worker's mouth.

I am hoping that life will resume a bit of normalcy soon. That I might be able to do laundry, clean my apartment, see my husband and dog, pay bills (yeah, I've slacked off on that-first time ever...NOT GOOD!)...and have fun.

To let you know that I am not totally down trodden and brow beaten: a lot of my night and weekend work are hanging out with people that I know and like, seeing fun things, and taking pictures for people. It is the part of the job. But when I'm out doing these fun things, I have to make up with lots and lots of "desk work."

So, Erin, there you go. Thanks for shaming me into posting. ***or just making me realize that someone actually checks up on me every once in awhile. Thanks.