Wunder Week

I'm slow... it just hit me that after my second relief foreman shift, I now realize that I am expected to be a process engineer, junior mentor to a summer intern, active on safety committees and still be a foreman. On top of that, a maintenance foreman commented that they could do well without me or Horace. I am working hard, and trying to be the best employee I can be, but the put-downs don't really help much. I hate to vent, but at least I am containing my frustration here. I need to learn to say "no" at work. I just keep getting swamped. "We'll handle it" "We'll deal with it" and "We'll get it done" have been my motto since joining the PM, but it's just not realistic. I'm not prepared to devote every waking hour to the machine - I need weekends, even if the mill runs 24/7.

With this weekend in mind, for the last two days off, I devoted more than half my time off to working at the mill. Once I switch to night shift in July, that simply will not be possible. I will be sleeping all day, and working 14 hour nights. I had a pretty good time out of town this weekend, went to the Gorge and did some whining and hiking. I was accompanied by a farmer from Illinois. You all know who that is, right? Anyway, in between I made a quick stop at Fry's looking for a surveillance cam - not too much luck.

Home Depot is next stop for a security light. I also had a chance to stop by Sheri's house to congratulate Angela on her graduation. She will soon be starting grad school at Lewis and Clark to be a public servant in the schools. She should be taking on her first class in about 15 months. She was a big part of my college experience, and seeing her and her scrapbook brought back a lot of memories from my school days. I also got a chance to let my cousin know that I am proud of him for graduating.

With all those things out of the way, I still got some bar time and had a really good trip to P-town. Now I am back to my other rotation this coming week. How wunderful!!!

I have been thinking of Coffee quite a bit for the last year - I miss him a lot. My heart is hurting, and I am getting a little sadder each minute as the one-year mark approaches.