TBR

The pink eye is behind me after a week of dousing my eyes, yes, both of them, with antibiotic eye drops. Fortunately, Charlie’s pediatrician gave us several refills during our last bout of pink eye, stating that Charlie’s parents could use them, too, when we inevitably contracted the nastiness of conjunctivitis. There was no “if” involved in that conversation. Dr. Y. knew it was just a matter of time. You see, that is why I love our pediatrician. He cares about the sanity of the whole family and not just the kid.

And now, with the stress of icky gooey red eyes behind me (and the embarrassment and need for explanation for why I look like I have been crying all night), I have a new stress in my life. And, as usual, this stress involves work.

As I have stated before, I work at a college as an administrative assistant. Actually, I am an administrative assistant II, which in essence means I am more than a secretary. In addition to typical office duties, I help to coordinate grant programs. Our newest adventure is a grant the college received this summer for The Big Read. This is a really exciting program (you can read more about it here and here), but it is so totally far removed from what I typically like to do. Why, you might ask? Because I find event planning of all sorts to be extremely difficult and ridden with anxiety. I am just not the kind of person who thinks about the behind the scenes details of special events, like making sure a panelist has a bottle of water, or making sure an esteemed speaker has a parking spot reserved, or making sure I have ordered enough cloths AND skirts for the tables. Ick! It is just is not fun for me. In fact, when planning my own wedding, I took an “I don’t really care” kind of approach mostly because I did not want to have to worry about the details that could possibly go wrong. The fewer details (like an ice sculpture, or the perfect flowers, or the release of butterflies at “I do” – all that extra stuff), the less I had to worry. And, my wedding was perfect because all I cared about was getting married and having a fun night for our guests.

So, The Big Read is forcing me to step outside of my comfort zone, and at times, I’m okay with it and at others, I just want to run away and hide out in a cabin in Wyoming somewhere. It is a lot of hard work and oftentimes, I feel like I am dangling off the side of a mountain on my own, guessing what I should do next. The Professor says that he is sure something good will come from all of this hard work. Surely, it won’t be some kind of lateral promotion for a job in event planning. That would really put me over the edge.