And so we find ourselves in finals week.  My version of finals week is fairly different than most people here on campus.  I get to spend most of this week worrying about our big graduation party going off without a hitch at the end of this week.  So while most people around here keep mumbling about exams and studying and grading and such, I mumble about caterers and venues and tickets and speakers.  Allow me to back up a bit.

Every spring, our graduation ceremony is held at 1pm on a saturday.  In order to help out our graduating seniors who are all packed up to move out, and to help their family and friends make it through a 2-3 hour ceremony, we provide a little catered lunch for everyone before graduation - just light snacks and finger sandwiches.  Well, in the past we usually started planning for around 200 people, but this year, I have 300 coming, and there's still the rest of finals week left to let me know!  Also, my boss decided to use the on-campus catering, rather that the company we've always used in the past.  Also, the Dean will be speaking to the group this year, so I need to coordinate his schedule and requirements.  Finally, all of the brick on the outside of our building started falling off this winter, and so our building is being propped up with jacks and 4 x 4's.  Needless to say, we didn't feel comfortable inviting everyone to a party here, so it's going to be in another building on campus.  So - new caterer, new speaker, new venue, and now more people.  It's all making me a bit nervous, to tell you the truth. 

And now, to top things off, my boss has lost her keys.  Not just her work keys, either.  She kept her school and her personal keys together (something I learned not to do my first week here!).  There seems to be no sign of them, but I've turned my desk upside down already looking. ;)

On a happier note, It's bright and sunny and warm out today.  Jason and I spent the weekend cleaning up in the backyard.  Jason finally got the last of the old leaves removed from the beds in the backyard, and got the lawn mowed.  I got the back porch cleared off, the dining set all cleaned up, and I spent a good amount of time removing ivy from one of the old elm trees in the backyard.  A particularly nasty (for other reasons) neighbor planted ivy on her side of the fence before she moved, and now it's invading my back yard and trying to strangle one of my trees!  I fought the good fight, though, and got every last leaf removed from the tree!  Hooray!  Hopefully I'll get a chance to plant the vegetable garden this weekend.  I had planned to do it last weekend, but after the yard cleanup, we were too tired.

Ah well, another work week to rest up, eh?  Finals week - the sweet smell of panic. ;)

There's so much to do to finish out the semester.  I know the students and the instructors are all at their wits end, just trying to make it through this last week.  But, dangit, those of us in the office are tired, too!  I'm ready for everyone to leave, to have the place to myself, to dress in jeans and t-shirts, and start cleaning out closets and cabinets and files.  And yet, to get to that wonderful summer, we have to get through students who forgot to register for fall, students who don't have internship sites for summer, seniors who don't have jobs, and of course graduation, finals, and course evaluations.  So, I'm excited to get started, and I'm ready to get a lot done, but I'm already tired.  *sigh* so much for the excitement.

Speaking of excitement, the sun is shining, the sky is clear, the perennials are up and the shrubs are blooming.  I want to step outside and just spin around in the yard... except that it's 38 degrees outside and it snowed yesterday!  What??  Beltane is this week... it's not supposed to snow! ;)  Luckily, it didn't frost last night, so everything is still ok. 

When I first started to explore this path, everyone talked about how the divine had a great sense of humor, and not to take myself too seriously on this path.  Now, I'd just like to say, thanks for the reminder!

Ugh!  I really need to post about my/our ordeal last friday.... but it wears me out just thinking about.  I need to do it soon, or I won't be as able to recall the details, however, even the thought of starting the tale makes me feel tired, and alone, and helpless. 

After I blogged on Friday night, happily waiting for Jason to board his plane from Chicago and come home to me, the airline decided that the replacement crew would be too close to their maximum hours if they flew down AND flew back, so rather than have the crew spend the night here, they cancelled the flight.  Now, mind you, there were 4 flights scheduled for that airline that day, and only one actually came down.

At any rate, Ohare is only 1.5 - 2 hours from here, so I said I would come up and get him, and bring him home.  I told him quickly, though.  He forgot to pack a charger for his cell phone, and after the week, it was about out of juice.  So up I start along the highway, going along my merry way.  Jason called to check my progress when I was about 20-30 minutes away, and then I didn't hear from him again.  Well, I drove along, diligently looking for the green highway sign that said "To O'hare Airport" that I had followed last time I went there.  Apparently, those signs do not exist anymore, because I found myself heading into the city.  Knowing I was in the wrong place, I tried to quickly text Jason that I was lost, so that he didn't worry about me.  It said the call had failed.  So I tried to call him... again, call failed.  Now, I couldn't believe I wouldn't have a signal in the city, so I assumed that his phone had finally died.  Everyone else I knew was 150 miles away and sound asleep.  I turned around and tried again.  This time, as I hit one of the suburbs, I knew I had not just missed the sign last time, it really wasn't there.  I stopped at a shell station for directions, but the clerk acted like he had never heard of Ohare, so I asked a customer.  He got me a little closer... I found a round called the Elgin-Ohare expressway.  Yippee!  Naturally, I assumed this magical road would have Elgin on one end and Ohare on the other.  So I started in the direction of Ohare, but found myself in a heavily residential area.  So I turned around, assuming I was tired and had gotten turned around.  But that way the road ended.  And so I stopped at a Mobil station.  This very friendly and very helpful woman gave me directions once again, and told me specifically that I would think I was lost, but to keep going.  I didn't think I could be more lost than I was, so I just kept going.  Most of her directions rang true, but then things didn't seem to match anymore, and so I stopped at a Marathon station (different stop, different brand ;) ).  He got me to the final road I needed, and I started to feel better.  It seems I came to Ohare from the back, and had to circle all the way around the entire airport.  But I made it.  Only 2.5 hours late!  And now, out of gas.  But I parked, and ran in to Terminal 1, hoping for one of those joyous reunions you see in the movies.  But there was no Jason.  I walked up and down the length of the terminal 6 times to search, but no Jason.  I finally went outside to see if he went out for a smoke (no), and decided to try to call one last time - call failed.  I was on the verge of tears at this point.  It was 3:30 am. I had been in the car for 4 hours, and I missed my husband!  Not knowing who to call, or what to do, my fingers dialed our house - empty except for the cats - 200 miles away.  Call failed.  Ok, something was wrong with MY phone!  I shut it off, hoping a reboot would work as well on it as it did my computer.  Success!  I tried to dial Jason's phone, but it went straight to voicemail.. damn!  He was out of juice.  The my phone started alerting me to all the textx and voicemail I had.  I checked the first one from my Dad.  I had texted him earlier not to call us for breakfast, and assumed he texted back right after... "where are you?"  I texted back "chicago" not thinking he'd see it until morning.  And then I started checking my voicemail.  I heard my husband's paniced voice asking where I was and what had happened, and I lost it.  I sobbed to the air around me "I don't know where you are!"  The fourth message was an unknown male, talking to my husband in the background.  I would learn later that this was the State Police, whom he had called after my parents in search of help.  I called me parents.  My dad answered, and all I could babble out was "Where's Jason?!"  They didn't know.  I keep looking, and they waited for Jason to call back.  He finally did, at 4am, and they asked  where he was, told him to stay put, and then called me.  They said he was at the bakery in terminal 1.  As I said before I had be all over terminal 1, but I checked again.... 2 bakeries... no Jason.  At that heart sinking moment of despair, I happened to see an ecalator, being a pillar and completely hidden from view, going up.  I tried it, turned around, and saw a bakery, and next to it, stood my Jason!  And just like in the movies, he turned around, saw me walking towards him, and broke into a run to hug me. ;) It was so sweet.  By the time we made it home again, it was 7 am, and I had been up for 24 hours.  It felt like a luxurious day of sleeping in, and I had my guy again. :)  Yippee.

We didn't see his luggage until Sunday.  We had to call the airline and have them put a tag on the luggage that said we needed it on the next flight down.  Well, the cancelled the next flights that were to come down.  After all that luggage (and I can imagine many unhappy people) they trucked the luggage down and delivered it to us at home.  Now, mind you it was bright and sunny and beautiful all weekend.  But that's neither here nor there.  We have him and his stuff.  And that was our big ordeal!

Well, my week on my own is almost over, and I've made it through.  Jason has just landed in Chicago, and will be running to make his connection to come home.  I should see him within 2 hours. :)  Otherwise, I was able to get some laundry done, sweep up a bit, and even got the trash out.  I'll be glad to have him home, though.  So will the kitties. 

Today was a delightfully busy day.  It started this morning at work... 8am.  There are four of us that work in my office suite.  The biggest boss was at an all day seminar, so we knew she'd be out.  My other boss called me early this morning to see what had been going on.  She's been out sick, and finally went to the doctor.  Bronchitis.  I told her to stay home.  We don't need that around!  The fourth person has a schedule that I haven't quite been able to pin down yet, but he always comes in later.

So that left me and my student helper to start the day.  And did we!  We got a new bulletin board made, and although it looks a bit grade school, it certainly looks better than what was up there!

The big excitement came when someone arrived for her meeting she had scheduled in the conference room.  Well, she needed a computer and projector.  So, I hiked from my office down to get the projector, and I took it down to set it up in the conference room for her.  As I opened the door to the hallway leading to the conference room, I felt a drip.  Now, this is not terribly unusual in our building, but it still surprised me.  We had what the people in charge affectionately call an indoor water feature merrily dripping away from the entire door frame, and pooling on the floor below, only to leisurely trickle it's way down the ramp towards the conference room.  Oh my!  So, I put the projector in the room, and showed her the cord to plug it in, and then quickly ran back to the Dean's Office, which is right across the hall from mine.  I told them about the leak, and then went back to my office.  I was only there about 2 minutes, when the woman from the meeting informed me she couldn't log on to the computer.  So, I go back down to the room to see what I could do, which was nothing.... so all the way back up to my office to call our computer tech who, of course, was out.  Then I remember one of our instructors taught in the conference room this semester, and used the projector, so I called him.  Success!  But he didn't have any trouble logging on. Failure. :(  So, at a bit of a loss, I sit at my desk and think.  At this point, my student help was probably looking at me much as a kitten does when it's human is trying desperately to entertain it.

At that time, I see another person in the meeting heading to the conference room.  I stop her and ask her to try her password to log on, thinking maybe we weren't authorized on that system.  She said that'd be fine if it was connected to the network.  I said we didn't have connectivity in that room, but had made it work before.  Just then the instructor I had called earlier appears behind me and says, "Oh, yeah, we have internet in there.  The computer tech gave me an adapter so we can plug it in.  It's in the drawer of the cart."  So this necessitated me going BACK down to the conference room, with the helpful instructor (who had nothing to do with the ensuing meeting), and 2 instructors who were involved in tow.  I walked in, made a joke about bringing in the cavalry, and plugged the adapter into the wall.  The whole thing whirred to life, and I hiked BACK up to my office and collapsed in my chair.  And then it was time to deliver mail.  ;)

Luckily, by this time, the fourth person had shown up.  I asked if he planned to stay all day, as I was hoping to take the afternoon off, and no one else was there to keep the office open.  He did!  Yippee!  And so, I went to pick up my wonderful Erica at lunchtime, and we had a fabulous afternoon of lunching, and shopping, and driving around to see what had changed since she was here last, and then eating dinner.  After dinner we took a drive out of town to look at the new wind farm (Some people don't like the thrumming sound they make... I find it soothing and meditative, but that's just me, and subject for another blog.) and we had a nice long talk about goals, and plans, and spirituality, and where we wanted to go in life.  I dropped her off for a nap, and came home to blog until it's time to go pick up my exhausted other half and be whole again... after 4 days of the single life, I'm more than ready to be a pair again. 

OK, I realize I'm relatively new to the whole blog thing, and apparently pretty miserable about updating it, but I really haven't forgotten about it - I promise.  I could give tons of excuses about the long break with no posts, but they are just the same excuses everyone gives, so there's really no point, then, is there?

Right, moving on... As happens every years at this time, Spring returns, Mother Nature reawakens, and I, for one week, become a single woman again - mistress of my domain.  Part of me is quite thrilled with the complete change in routine of being on my own, but most of me is dismayed at the loss of my other half for a whole week (okay, it's only 3 nights... but it's four days, which is over half the week, which by rounding up equals a whole week, right?).  I find that I have a hard time with my sleep cycle when this happens.  Jason seems to be better about going to bed than I am.  I am such a night owl... I lay in bed, and I'll think of something, and rahter than put it on my mental to-do list for the morning, I get right up and do it.  So last night, my first night alone this week, I didn't get to bed until about 1am.  I know, not terribly late, however, I had to really struggle to go that early!  And then, since I didn't have Jason to be my backup alarm in the morning, I slept rather lightly until 7am, fearful I would oversleep and be late to work.  I didn't, and I wasn't, but the possibility was there.  I also find that I play with the cats more... I'm not trying to rush another person and myself out of the house.  It's just me, and I know what I need to take and what I don't (sometimes).

In other news, Erica is coming to visit.  I've spent the last 5 minutes trying to figure out how to describe my relationship with Erica, and words just don't seem to be sufficient here.  I just can't.... I keep trying, but I can't explain her.  The important part is that she's coming for a visit!!!  It wasn't that long since I saw her last (a bit before Yule, I think), but it seems like AGES!  Jason and Erica will be back at the same time, so, WoW - what a friday! ;)

I have to run to a buffet catered lunch a student invited me to... until later!