indescribableThe last few weeks have been absolute madness. It's kind of a miracle I'm still organized enough to pack my suitcase (although perhaps I should hold off on that comment until I arrive in London and know that I have remembered to bring underwear).
First, there was the plumbing. We've been wanting to redo the pipes for a while now -- it's an old house, they were old cast-iron pipes, and they were getting near the end of their usefulness. So we -- or, to be more accurate,
fairplaythings -- started calling plumbers. You can follow the whole epic story over at his journal, but let me give you the summarized version. By the time we finally got an acceptable quote, nearly every water-draining device in the house was starting to have difficulty draining. The bathtub (which turned out to be 40 years of accumulated hair -- ew), the grimy old laundry sink downstairs (which I would never allow my laundry to touch!That turned out to be flaked-off bits of the sink itself blocking the drain), and finally the toilet. At which point I seriously considered some kind of drastic action. The toilet, believe it or not, turned out to be a mostly-empty toothpaste tube that had gotten stuck somehow. We think it fell in when we were bailing out the bathtub one morning. I couldn't make this kind of thing up. ANYWAY. The plumbing nightmare is now ended, and we have shiny new PVC pipes, a new toilet, new taps in the bathtub (that don't drip!), and a new laundry sink (that could actually be used for laundry). And a new hole in the living room wall that we're going to have to drywall, but that's for another day. Then, there was the job stuff. I've been having a pretty stressful time at work ever since one of my colleagues left, because I've been trying to do both her job and my own, and it's been a little much. Our new person started on Friday -- which is record time where government hiring is concerned -- and things were just starting to level out, when...
I got a job offer.
I agonized over whether I was going to take it or not. It was a promotion, it was a new challenge, a new environment, all that good stuff... but I felt really guilty about leaving my manager and my colleagues, so soon after the other senior person had left. If the timing had only been different, it would have been a much easier decision!
Anyway, I did finally end up taking the new job. And then had to wait for my management to agree to sign off on it, because it's just a two-year term and they'll have to hold my job for me to come back to!
Fortunately, they did say yes. So at the end of June I'll be heading off to a brand new job!
I got the offer on Friday, spent the weekend deciding to take it, and then spent Monday waiting to hear if I was going to be allowed to go. It's been, well, agonizing.
So let's just say I am really ready for my vacation now.
