Next week will seem like a breeze, no?

This was a very tough week. My cousin Heidi's husband Brad passed away, but I'm not up to talking about the details right now. Luckily our extended families are close and supported, so she and their son Lato have had a huge amount of love surrounding them these last few days.

I've been trying to work on an audit, and totally expected I could breeze through it on a "regular" timeline, unlike my last audit which had major roadblocks and had to be worked on over the course of 18 months. But oh no, the day after the entrance (that's the kick-off meeting with the department I'm going to audit) we found out Mike would be scheduled for knee replacement!

So okay, regroup, I'll get as much done as I can in two weeks and then come back to it full force after being home with Mike for two weeks. But oh no, three days later I confirmed schedules and availability with my assigned liaison, only to send an e-mail the next day and get an out-of-office reply: she is in training for three days. Seriously. Snuck up on her.

So okay, Monday is a new week to really buckle down for at least one week. But oh no, out of the four staff in the area I'm auditing, one has been on leave, one was taking a week's vacation, then a third called in sick!

So working around all this, I met with their counterparts in the City's department one day, and met with the information systems people another day to get briefed on their tracking systems and interfaces, security, back-ups, etc.

Then yesterday their elected official called our elected official with a request for help in a different area. Whatever. I helped on that today, I can do a bit on Monday, then I'm off for two weeks. Paul and Linda in our office will carry on and finish the rest of that special work.

When I come back, I can plow through my original job with fresh energy, right? I am serious, there's no reason not to, and the days will be getting longer, and the flowers will be blooming!