Desert Magnolia

I miss you guys. I miss regular posts and I miss keeping you abreast of my life and I miss..just having enough time to breathe and contemplate topics to share and generally just...be...at all. Right now..things are as we might expect given all the factors in play. School rocks. I love it. Every single day I sit in class and listen, and I read and read and read and talk with my fellow students I realize how very right this path is for me to take. It's hard to overemphasize how wonderful I think this is. Work? Well, let's just say someone has injected our normally frenetic pace with some kind of an alien steroid, which is causing extreme pressure for all, and is making me take deep breaths and yearn for a modicum of perspective, which, of late, I've lost more often than I care to admit. I know, I should be able to control the forces at work, or more importantly, manage my perspective on it all. But I haven't. And it maddens me. So I'm working on it. Seriously

It's hard to believe, but I've written 300 blog posts. I've mused, I've contemplated, I've whined, I've boasted, I've grieved, I've vented, I've waxed eloquent and inane, I've demonstrated depth and great shallowness, and I've, in spite of my random approach, found a voice that feels right, lovely, mine. 300. More than some, less than others, but right now? Feeling just right for Desert Magnolia. Thank you for being there. You're why I share. Hugs, Stevie

Mondays can be a challenge. There's the whole shock to the system of waking up and realizing it's not the weekend anymore, which kind of blows. And then the jolt out of the lazy flow of the weekend into the time-focused 'gotta be at the office by x time, gotta get ready for the company meeting, gotta check emails/deadlines to ensure nothing is on fire' stuff. And then the reality of settling into the week...and knowing that this one will be a full one. They all seem to be. This week for me: Work. Lots of good stuff going on, but 'lots' being the watchword. School. 2nd trimester starts. Tomorrow a.m. So tomorrow for me is school, 9-12; work 1230-430; clinic 5-9. Long day, Tuesday. For this I've washed and pressed my lab coat, cleaned out my tote (it is truly amazing what collects during a trimester in terms of used kleenexes, abandoned index cards, folded notes that were important at some point but now are just extra weight, stale snacks, etc.), and