5:46 am.  phone rings. my boss calling, answer phone: asked to go to work early as someone called in with a sick child.
6:50 am walk into clinic wondering where co-worker that's usually there at 6:40 is (was stuck in traffic)
6:55 am listened to VM at work, found out I will be supervising an OT student that is scheduled to be with the therapist that called in with a sick child.
7:05 am student shows up. student orientation. 
7:55  PT manager walks in saying she's going to be doing some "timing" of documentation today (she couldn't have picked a more chaotic day to come in...gee...)
8-9 am  with patients
9-10:30am   student stuff
10:30am   -1pm patients.
1-1:35pm  lunch
1:40-3:00 pm with patients (including walk-in patient that's a little...interesting)
3-3:30 pm  student evaluation
3:30-5:00 pm with patients
5-6:30 pm documentation -- decides at6:15 that my brain is fried and i need to go home.

(and try to imagine that yesterday (Monday) at work was even more chaotic for me than today...)

got home. ate dinner. vegged in front of TV.  did a couple of notes for work. more vegging.

think it's time for bed.  So very thankful that i didn't have deacon board meeting tonight...i would've been completely useless at the meeting.

Mondays are always hard for me. Mostly because it's my 10-hour work day, which means i'm at work by 6:45 in the morning (or at least i try to).  If you know me, you know that i am NOT a morning person (and likely never will be). Trying to get up at 5:30 is never easy and the thought of being at work till 5:30 or later doesn't exactly excite me in the mornings....

Anyways, this morning, i was having a very hard time getting up, by the time I was up and ready to leave, it was about 6:30 (10 minutes later than the time i would like to leave)...i had my work laptop bag, my purse, my lunch bag and as i went to grab my coffee....I knocked it over. evidently, i didn't close my cup so it spilled on me and all over the hard wood floor in the kitchen. thank goodness i had an outfit on that didn't show the coffee spill so i skipped the thought of changing and went to clean up the mess i created in the kitchen. by the time i left my apartment, it was almost 6:40.

as i put everything i had to carry into my car, my next thought was: shoot, i forgot to close my room window and it's suppose to rain/storm. dang it.   nothing i could've done about it since i was going to be very close to being late to work.

all i could think of in my head was this:  what else is going to go wrong today??? this is going to be a bad week with such an awful start. why do i have to work on mondays???  (you get the idea)

Then i saw a rainbow as i drove west on 394.  then i started to pay little more attention to my surroundings wondering why is there a rainbow? (i promise i was driving carefully).  i don't know my basic nature sciences very well, so i can't exactly explain why there was a rainbow where i was at the moment. i mean, it as a little cloudy and a little sunny at the same time but not raining where i was.  anyways, my point is, as i looked at the rainbow, my heart calmed down and I remembered God's promises: He will be with me all the time and carry me through my hard times.  My life is so much more than the spilled coffee or the unclosed window, why do i let little things upset me so much when our Amazing God is offering me bigger and better things?? as i cruised off of hwy 100 onto hwy 7, i saw another rainbow. i had to smile.

even though i had a rough start this morning, i have to say, my day didn't follow that pattern, if anything, it went very well. I left work before 6pm (which to me is a huge deal). So many times i have let little things ruin my days or weeks because I allow them to. So many times i forget to put God in the center of my life and only focus on myself. So many times, all I depend on is myself and not my Heavenly Father. the rainbows reminded me that i need put God back in the center and focal point and then other things will fall into place!

i've been working for about 2 years now...never thought i would get to the point where i would need to bring work home.  until i was at work till 9pm on a friday night...then i realized, having the flexibility of bringing some work home might not be a bad idea after all....so i talked to my supervisor and she requested the network privileges one needs to access the network from home on a work laptop (gotta love online computer documentation).

since i've gotten the ok to bring work home...i've already done it twice in a week. in some ways, it has helped a lot: for instance, on wednesday, i was able to leave work on time to get to small group and still finish my notes the same day, just later in the evening. another example: i was not at work on friday till 9pm again, instead, i was able to leave at a decent time to run some errands before all the stores closed for the bridal shower i hosted this weekend.

so, it may seem like it's a good thing...however, i find it difficult to really keep work and my own life separate when i have the laptop at home. I just spent 2.5 hours finishing up notes from last week instead of relaxing to get ready for the week (or doing church stuff) and then in a few more hours, i'll be back at work, doing more work, makes me feel like i'm a workaholic and all i do is work....it really makes me wonder how to balance work and life.

I guess time will tell whether taking work home is a good thing or bad thing