Life is Just a Chair of Bowlies

This month has been really crazy. I foolishly agreed, nay volunteered to change territories. What the hell was I thinking? All month I've been training the new girl in my old territory and getting reacquainted with my new/old territory. Before I went on maternity leave I had Laclede, Camden, Pulaski, Phelps and Dent counties + five others. I have NO idea how I did that. I do remember several days while I was pregnant that I just had to pull over in a park or somewhere and take a nap for 30 minutes or I'd never have made it back home. The past four years I've been covering Northern Green, Polk, Hickory and Lawrence counties which has really been pretty cheesy.

The northeastern rep decided to retire and it just made geographical sense for me to make the move. Turns out geographical sense is not really nearly as good as common sense. I don't know why the hour and fifteen minutes to Rolla seems so much farther than the hour and fifteen minutes to Bolivar but it does!

I spent five days out this month with the new rep showing her the sites, the ropes and meeting and greeting. I had to do the same with the retiring rep and spent FOUR days last week in Rolla at Missouri S&T's blood drives trying to get my ducks in a row before next year and gleaning everything I could from Linda (the retiring rep). I am beat. If it hadn't been for Bryon and Grandpa Gary this week, Grace would have been abandoned! I didn't eat a home cooked meal all week! Bryon and Grace ate out every night and Bryon gained 4 pounds! I didn't get lunch every day until 2 or 3 and skipped dinner and lost 3 pounds. Of course, I've made up for it this weekend on a stress, power binge eating brownies. If weren't for brownies I'm sure I'd be an alcoholic. Chocolate is my drug of choice. Chocolate and television.

I didn't get home until after 8 every night last week and then stayed up catching up on my shows. They are the only decompression I get, so I'm screwed when the season finale's come on in a couple of weeks. I may need to stock up on brownies.

I'm hopeful things will slow down a bit now. My new territory officially stared Friday and Linda will be officially retired next Friday. I have one late night next week then I HOPE that's pretty much it until June.

I love my job and I'm pretty good at it after 9 years. I like change too, so I'm excited for the new opportunities. It just seems like everything piles on at once when change comes.

We've also been dealing with NO WASHING MACHINE for the past three weeks. You can imagine how fun THAT has been in the midst of everything else. It just died. It's the fourth time it's had to be repaired. This time the motor burned out. It's two years old. Thank God we bought the extended warranty! I know the repair guy on a first name basis now and his cell number is on my speed dial. Grandpa Gary oversaw the repairs and let him in to fix it. Bryon spent one evening at the laundry mat, I spent one and I schleped all my clothes to my Mom's the last time. I hadn't been in a laundry mat since the ice storm of 2007 and college before that. My MOM hadn't had to wash my clothes since college. I definitely appreciate my washing machine more than usual now.

As fate would have it, I had also been waiting all week for my BEES to come. They were supposed to be shipped on Saturday so I figured they would arrive on Monday. Monday morning bright and early I called the Niangua Post Office. Postal workers get nervous when live bees arrive. No bees. Tuesday, I called...no bees. Wednesday morning I called and Margaret at the PO said yes they had finally arrived but they didn't look very good and it appear that many of them were dead. She was right. There was about a half inch of dead bees on the bottom of the cage. She suggested I go online and claim my insurance on them, which I still plan to do. I took the rest of them home, suited up, hived the bees and was on the road to Rolla by 8:30 am.

Then Thursday night about 7:30 as I was driving home from Rolla, Bryon called to see how far out I was. I told him mile marker 119 (Marshfield is 100). He said he and Grace were headed to the vet with Ruger. He thought his leg was broken. Apparently Ruger had taken a dip in pond and then gone balls out up the back deck stairs only to fall back down them. Grace was the only witness because Bryon was around the side of the house. Bryon said he just started yelping like he'd been shot and when he got around the house Ruger's leg was just dangling. They loaded him up and called the Vet in for an ER call. The vet told them he'd take a look and xray if needed and set it in the morning.

I pulled in right as Bryon was carrying Ruger into the exam room. By the time the got there, Ruger was calmed down. The vet looked him over. He yelped, but the vet thought he'd just stretched his joint (knee area)and that nothing was broken. He said Ruger would probably hold and favor that leg until it healed, probably several weeks from now and he wasn't even going to give him any pain med because if he did he wouldn't take it easy on it at all. Let me tell you, that night was the best that dog has been. He didn't pee in the house and he laid calmly and lovingly across my lap on couch while I watched tv. He was downright pleasant.

That lasted one night.

He's insane again. Barely limping and OUTSIDE. Hopefully to stay.