I am not working today, first day in two weeks. I’m home, the kids are all home, and we’re going to sit down to my wife’s spectacular Thanksgiving dinner in a few hours. Right now the smells of turkey and dressing are wafting through the air, and we’ll get a fire going in the fireplace here soon. The dog is on the floor next to my foot, and the cats are jostling for position on the couch and throw pillows.
I love days like today, and this one couldn’t come at a better time.
I worked 57 hours last week. I have today off, but tomorrow I get back to it — Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Our project is essentially on top of our completion deadline, and we’re nowhere close to done. My team is the logjam, and we just lost one of our members to a family illness. We’re in deep doo-doo, and all we can do is keep pounding away.
It’s very hard to keep thoughts of work out of my head, but my family is helping a lot. I’m keeping “busy,” putzing around with changing light bulbs and sorting through old junk mail, and soaking in as much of this as I can. It’s going to have to do me for a while.
Sunday afternoon I drive back to Columbus, and my sparsely-appointed environs. The last two weeks has been work; eat; sleep; repeat. The next week or two is likely to be more of the same. This out-of-town assignment is tolerable, but not what I’d prefer. Maybe when things settle down at work it will be easier to tolerate.
It’s easier to see that now that I’ve had a chance to come up for air.
Meg Currell 
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