The past few days have been hectic, especially in terms of weather. Lots of high wind, sleet, hail, snow, rain and even thunder and lightning. In between, there has been just enough sun to make you think the weather is changing… it usually lasts about 30 minutes. Right now, it is one of those periods and the boys and I should make a run for it to have a walk outside before the next winter wave starts. However, I am waiting to have my weekly Skype call with my mentee and so we will probably have to wait until the next window.

Last night, I got out the Crock Pot. I was struggling with making a decision about what to make for dinner – stress tends to do this to me. I would be fine with making a decision about the nuclear codes but which types of potatoes to choose in the store – fast cooking vs crumbly will take me a good 10 minutes. I decided it was time to clean out some of the cabinets and experiment. It cooked all night and it is pretty good. I think it was really more about the idea of something warm simmering that was appealing.

Monday is the 16th. This past week, without the distractions of family, I’ve become more and more anxious. While I am conscious of it, I still haven’t found a way to avoid it. And I might not ever. It may simply be that I simply honor the fact that this time of the year is hard for me and I am going to be slightly off during this time. Hence the potato indecision.

I also don’t want to see anybody at the moment. I had to be at the office a lot this week which wasn’t ideal for me when I want to hide out in my house and be left alone to work. Last night, I had promised to drop by my 2nd living room since I hadn’t been there in a while. Around 10PM, I thought to myself “Not going to” and about 15 minutes later someone called me and asked if they could come over. Which I certainly would not say “No” to. It was a good conversation, we spent a lot of time strategizing over her business plans.

I am still waiting to hear about the next job. I finally gave in yesterday and sent a message to their HR department since it was a week later than when they had promised to have an update. I heard back from him that I need to have more patience and wait another week. He thinks that over the coming week they will have reached a decision. ARGH. In the meantime, I had an interview of another sort this past week. The job doesn’t exactly exist at the moment, it was more of a discussion of what the right approach is to take on this particular program. Of course, if you don’t have an actual recquisition, that makes it somewhat dubious 😉 It would be a job I would be great at and it would be my dream job if they actually turned it into a job. But for the moment, it is kind of like playing fantasy football.

Tuesday night GG and I went to see Rufus Wainwright in Utrecht. We were once again in row 1. It appears that she has a special affinity for buying tickets in that row. It was kind of awkward to sit that close because you really have no where else to look. The performers can see you because as we took the train home, we were walking behind two of the violinists and one turned to us and said “You were in the first row, weren’t you?”

While I didn’t get around to counting the number of eyeballs on his pants, it was close enough for me. Unlike the Suzanne Vega experience, where we were diagonally facing the stage from row 1, here we were full on.

During this evening, I discovered the difference in cough medicine definitions in countries. GG had a pretty bad cough so in the train station, she said she was going to get something for it in the HEMA. Okay, makes sense, she comes back with a bag of things which I assume are cough drops. During the concert, she is coughing alot. I keep thinking to myself “Why are those stupid cough drops not working?” On the train ride home, I finally get a good look at the bag and after translating in my head, I realized they were JELLYBEANS. Which then lead to a conversation about why you would use jellybeans as cough suppressants. They have zero cough suppression effectiveness. Next time, I will be checking for the menthol content 😉

Tonight, I am supposed to go to an Italian themed party, hosted by Italians. I am not really feeling like going. But since this is the Netherlands and I said I was coming and they limited the number of attendees, I can’t really back out. So I will put on my extrovert pants and go for a time long enough to show that I value the invitation. Or long enough to consume my contribution of 18 euro in Italian food and wine since we all chipped in.