got your chin held high and you feel just fine 'cause you do what you're told

Today was a long day, but I'm surprisingly less behind than I thought I was. It helps that I was at the office from 8am to 9pm; as always, the end of the quarter is busy for several reasons, the beginning of the quarter is busy for a completely different set of reasons, and of course the end of one quarter and the start of another are only a day apart. Compound the usual transition business with the ongoing effects of the layoffs last week, and I'm quite a busy camper.

So, I had many meetings today, but they were generally not annoying. I also got allergy shots, which hurt but weren't too itchy. I spent some quality time with Joy this afternoon (friend Joy -- I also had lunch with a completely different Joy). By 5:30, I was done with meetings, and I finally got to all the tasks at hand. When I wrapped up at nine p.m., I had nearly cleared out my inbox, and had also made a mammoth excel document utilizing my favorite excel tools (pivot tables, vlookup, and conditional formatting).

Thanks to my productivity, I can leave for San Diego tomorrow afternoon with a mostly clean conscience. I managed to pack tonight too, so I don't have to worry about packing tomorrow, although we'll see when I get to San Diego whether I was able to actually put together any outfits that work.

Finally, I haven't lost focus on my romance novel -- I'm really eager to get back to the first one, revise it a bit based on the feedback I've received from agents, and then move back to Ferguson and Madeleine. But, the past two weeks at work have been intense, and I'm predicting that I will struggle this summer to maintain all the walls I erected to protect my precious work/life balance. With the changes to my team after last week's "organizational changes" (to use manager-speak), I simply have to take on additional stuff. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to get even more efficient so that I can take it all on and still have time for my beloved characters.

But all of that is a problem for another day. It's time for bed -- I'll try to blog from San Diego!