The DonnaBlog: Whoa

First - It has been a long time since I've posted here (well, it's only been a week but it seems longer). Admittedly, part of it has been the pace of life. But I wrote a long entry late last week that just disappeared. Typically, Blogger will save them until I click on the "Publish" button but for some reason last week a fairly long entry ended up in whatever cosmic bit bucket is set aside for unseen stuff. I'm just sayin'......

All the things I discussed in my last entry have come to pass. I've made more stable, longer term arrangements here in Nebraska. I'm not going to end up in the hotel thing again.....I'm just not. My new arrangements are two miles from work, it's out in the country-ish, and I'm hoping it will be a good pseudo-home. In some ways, I suppose this will be home and my place in South Carolina will be the pseudo-home for a little while since I'll be here far more than I'll be there in coming months.

Regardless, for a one bedroom apartment, it's nice. I chose it over the lofts downtown in the heart of "stuff", and other potential options. So - that decision has been made.

My trip over the weekend was pretty significant. Friday I packed, went to work, left early to drive to the airport, flew to Charlotte, then drove from there to Charleston. It was a long day - I pulled in front of my house after 11pm. But it was worth it.

Saturday was devoted to taking care of some errands, spending some down time with a certain someone, and packing up the truck.

Sunday I was on the road by 7am and hit my daily limit just past the 1,000 mile mark in central Missouri. I stopped at a hotel, took a shower, and got some sleep. I was up at 5am yesterday morning morning and on the road less than 20 minutes later. I pulled into the parking lot at work at 10 and was there for the rest of the day.

The last time I did a drive like that there were some residual effects, as in - feeling like crap for several days afterwards. Generally speaking, so far so good in that department. Nothing is hurting or aching, and I'm in pretty good spirits.

I still can't believe it....the fact that I'm here, and now my truck is here, and that I've made arrangements for a place to live here. It still hasn't soaked in yet.

I will continue to be vague on some of the details of why I'm here out of necessity. It's part of the deal. But know that it took a lot to pry me all the way to the middle of the country from my cozy little world in South Carolina. But sometimes in life unexpected opportunities come your way and you just need to be open to grabbing them. That's what I've done. But home is where the heart is, and mine is 1,300 miles from here.

I have found it to be interesting to see what motivates me these days. The allure of this opportunity of others wasn't money, and it certainly wasn't location. I knew I'd probably need to leave Charleston to do what I do career-wise - the only question was where. But in this case, the driving force was to do something new, and interesting, and....well....just cool. I'm still learning and growing, and the need to do new things is a stronger one than I realized.

I've had a few people ask how long I'll be here. That depends. But, I'm comfortable enough with what's happening at this point that I'm signing a fairly long-term lease. At least by my standards.

Much of the next few weeks will be spent trying to get settled. Nesting. I need to make things as comfy as I can. And getting things going at work. After all, that's the reason I'm here. As I've mentioned, I don't have many distractions here so it's actually fairly easy to focus. And although I had done a good job of getting back into the fitness mindset I'll admit that my time in Charleston involved more eating than I usually do. That's ok - it's a balance thing.

Speaking of balance, I got an email today saying that a workshop I proposed for SCC this year had been accepted. I'm not really surprised, as I had asked them what topic they'd like to see me propose and they gave me a couple of options - one of which I chose. But I haven't been to SCC in a couple of years so it'll be nice to get back and see some friends.

There's a lot of water to pass under the bridge between now and then, though. A whole summer. Still, as quickly as time seems to move these days I suspect autumn will be here before you know it.

Anyway - time for bed. I'll share a couple of pics of some of the weather from the road trip. Things got pretty intense a few times which made for an interesting day. But, as usual, we got through it ok. I'm bringing my truck to the local Toyota dealer tomorrow for some loving. She deserves it...