This week has been one of ups and downs.  Monday night my beloved Jayhawks won the National Basketball Championship.  Little sleep before work on Tuesday, but it was okay.  On Tuesday night I was getting ready to pay bills prior to the 15th (my usual midmonth bill paying day).  I found that I had a $934 cell phone bill.  I called AT&T once I figured out that my son’s new phone which is supposed to have internet for an extra $30 bucks a month didn’t and he had a $600 bill.  They were in the process of fixing it (I was on the phone) when my son called.  I ignored the call and my daughter answered it instead.  My son had been rearended.

I handed the phone with the AT&T lady and talked to my son.  He was on a highway on ramp.  The person ahead of him had his/her left turn indicator on and suddenly switched it to the right and slowed down (just as the lanes began to merge).  My son couldn’t pull into traffic because it was busy so he slowed to a stop.  The lady behind him plowed into him (without ever even beginning to break) at 50 miles an hour.  It pushed the entre back trunk area of my 2005 Chrysler Sebring up past the wheel base.  At first I though well how bad was it until he told me her Jeep Liberty had huge damage to the front. 

The tow truck driver brought him and his friends girlfriend home. She was still in the backseat after they had dropped her boyfriend off.  Both kids were okay so what could I do.  When I saw the car I was shocked.  It was dark and on the tow truck.  I was astounded when I saw it on Friday night as we got the last of my emergency equipment out of the trunk and pulled my plates.  It was surprising that neither of the kids was hurt.  I filed my claim on Wednesday morning and got my rental.  That afternoon her insurance company had called and began the settlement process.  They actually settled on Thursday with a very decent settlement.   The car was totaled (obviously).  I now just have to contact them with the lienholder information so they can cut a check. 

The kids and I are going car hunting tomorrow.  It is either a new sebring or maybe a Hyndai Sonata.  It depends on which I like the best.  My rental is a 2007 Sebring.  It is nice, the car changed in 2007 so it feels different.  I have to admit that my old one did exactly what it was supposed to do.  Crumple to the passenger compartment. 

My family was surprised that I stayed so calm.  I think that this year has taught me to calm down.  I cannot change the outcome so I have to be as positive as I can.  My daughters year has really taught me more than I thought.  I have become far more spiritual again.  My ex was astounded that I wasn’t freaking out.  Two years ago, I would have, but what can I do?  To stay healthy, I just have to relax and say thank god the kids are okay.  I do believe that had my son been at fault, I might have eventually reactted differently, but even then, I couldn’t have changed anything so…

I thnk that we have had our fair share of crap come our way this year.  I hope that the rest of the year goes much better!

After 20 years, we are finally NCAA Division 1 champions again.  The game was awesome, up and down, an overtime.  Rock Chalk Jayhawk KU.   Mario’s 3 point at the end of regulation was a huge turning point – that and Tiger missed free throws.  It was so exciting.  My dad passed away 3 years ago, and I actually heard him chanting at the end of regulation.  He would have loved the game, he would have been pacing back and forth, yelling at the TV.  He would have been taking his KU hat off, rubbing his head making his hair stand on end, and then put it back on – over and over. 

I left my Toastmasters demo meeting just in time to get home for the game.  I was just so ready and so positive all season that this was our year.  It was awesome.  The game was great.  The Memphis team made hisotry even though they didn’t win the game.  I am just so happy.  Being a KU baby (my dad was in college when I was born, my first home was married housing on the KU campus.  I went to school there for 3 summer school sessions (I went to University of Arizona in the winter).  My dad ran the biology labs for years.  He was a graduate and my part of my family still lives in Lawrence.  I am just so excited.

Okay, I admit that I was sick on the semi-final game night with KU in the BIg 12 tournament.  It just goes to show how sick I really was.  I got up only for the final game on Sunday.  I then missed another two days of work.  It was awful.  Whatever it was took me down and out!  The following week was NFL qualifiers.  It was great, we actually qualified someone to Nationals in Humorous Interpretation.  We also had to alternates.  We shall see.  June in Vegas with a thousand high school students.  How exciting.

After a week of madness at work, and watching every avialable game in the NCAA tournament, I was thrilled that KU got into the final four last weekend.  Barely I admit, but it was a great game that Davidson played.  Had I had the time, I would have made a road trip to San Antonio to sit on the Riverwalk and watch the game in a bar, but no time!  Darn it all.  I am saving time for Nationals and to the International Toastmasters Convention in Canada this year.  Either way, I cannot wait for the game tomorrow.  It is the first time in 20 years that KU is in the final game.  I hope that the result is the same.  Maybe Danny Manning is our good luck charm since he is an assistant coach and was on that Championship team.  Last nights game was awesome.  I was actually a bit stunned, but wow.  Fireworks every where.  It was awesome!

I am always sad when the big dance is over because it is December before college basketball comes around again.  I love college basketball.  And again this year I lost to Brent in our private pool, however, I had my pre-season final 4 as the real final four (for the first time in history all 4 teams are #1 seeds) and more surprising I chose them preseason.  This means for the 3 year in a row, Brent and I are even.  I won preseason picks and he won the pool.  We only have a dollar on each, but it is the competition that counts.   I aways do better in rounds 2 and 3 and he does better rounds 1 (barely) and round 4.  GRRRRR!

I take my daily multi-vitamin, I take my suppliments, I received my flu shot and out of nowhere, I am whammed with a rotten cold.  I had a speech on Friday for a demo meeting for our company.  I had to call my friend, Larry, to have a lapel mic ready since I knew I could not project through the huge room (usually no problem).  The speech went well, but wow, do I feel like crap.  I slept almost all day yesterday and today. It was bad enough that I slept right through the KU semi-final game in the Big 12.  At least I roused myself enough to watch the final game against Texas.  Hopefully for a #1 seed.  The game is awesome, but I cannot yell and scream.  Bummer.

I was actually going to attend in person and this crept in on me.  I knew that I couldn’t manage the walk well.  Anyway, I suppose the game is fine on TV.  Very energic, very excitng.  Only 1 minute will determine the outcome.   Of course the weather matches my mood – crappy.  Cold, cloudy, nasty.  Is this really mid-March?  Last Friday it snowed, yesterday it snowed.  Whatever!   At least KU will win the game.  79-73 with only 40 seconds left is pretty much a gimme.   Oh yeas!  After losing to them twice – I am so happy. 

Life is settling down a bit. My daughter is back to work.  Looking forward to getting back into school.  She still seems a bit scattered, but all in all, I cannot ask for more. 

A the geek in me really enjoyed Friday and Saturday at the Speech portion of our NFL National Qualifying tournament.  I love the kids, the other judges, getting to see old students return as judges (they must be 2 years past high school graduation).  I love the thrill of the qualifying process.  And best of all, we had 3 students in the finals round this weekend.  One DUO team, one Extemp – Domestic, and a HI (one of the partners from the DUO).  We all cried when CBass qualified in first place in HI.  It was awesome.  This event was announced before the HI event and his partner didn’t realize if he qualified in HI he couldn’t qualify in DUO.  They place 5th which was great anyway because to be honest – DUO was the strongest event this year.  Off to Vegas in June now.  I was going anyway, but now it there will be icing on the cake.  Our PUF debate team was the first alternate. I don’t want them to go because it would be someone else’s misfortune – we already learned how tough that is. 

At the awards – Garrett was recognized.  We all wore ribbons with his school colors all weekend.  When Chris announced the minute of silence she actually began crying which set a bunch of us off.  Those of us who knew Garrett.  It was tough.

 On Monday, I went to a DB2 Users group for KC.  Another geeky thing – I know.   It was fun.  I ran into someone from Toastmasters and that was fun too.  My work friends there said only I could meet someone once and have them recognize me.  Okay that was interesting too because I cut my hair off to donate to Locks of Love.  It is shorter than it has been in 14 years.  I mean really, really short.  It is a bit liberating not to be tied to long hair.

This week is turning out to be okay so far…

My daughter is not finally home.  She has a therapist who will begin to integrate her personalities.  One can only hope that it will go very well.  Her poor brother just hates to have her in her room with the door closed and she is actually respecting his fear right now.

 Now onto the rest of the news… I judge high school speech and debate – particularly policy debate  or cross-examination (CX) as it is commonly known.  I have been very active in the western part of Missouri and eastern Kansas as a judge.  I have been doing this for the last 10 years.  I debated in college and did individual events in high school so it is a passion of mine.  I love the kids, watching them grow up, become productive adults.  Friday and Saturday I spent judging debate for our national qualifying tournament in my home district.  I watched some bad rounds on Friday but Saturday was awesome.  It is interesting that the NFL (National Forensics League) coaches have unaffiliated me from my daughter school since I am no longer coaching them.  They did this so that I could judge any team and because they respect me.  I actually judge any time I am asked, but any coach.  Consequently, I know most of the debaters in community.  The weekend was fun because I was actually panelled with young adults that I watched grow up.  One of my favorites is now a married soon-to-be mother of twins (a boy and a girl).  I was so thrilled.

This morning, one of my co-workers stopped me and asked me if I knew a young debater from Blue Springs High School in the KC area.  Of course I did, I asked why.  She said he was killed in a car accident Tuesday morning in rush hour traffic.  This young man was only 18.  He qualified for Nationals with his partner on Saturday in Policy Debate.  Tragically for his family, friends, coaches, teammates, and our debate community he died on impact.  I was horrified.  I just sat stunned.  My friend pointed me to several websites.  He was amazing and so much fun.  I had the honor to judge him in finals several times – just this year.  I admit that I do have some favorites and he was one of them.  He was funny, gracious, so very smart, and chose debate over football and basketball.

I guess it just proves that you have to take each and every day as if it is your last.  My god, the last week has been full of ups and downs.  I actually judged both Friday and Saturday because I love it so very much.  It kept my mind off of my daughter.  She will actually be judging at the individual events National Qualifer this weekend.  We will also attend his funeral – and I admit – I hate funerals!  I guess I am looking at every day from now on with a bit of difference.  I dont’ know if that is good or bad. 

I also admit that I am curious to see how the NFL handles the qualification of his partner.  I am assuming that the NFL will give him an automatic berth into Lincoln Douglas or another individual event since his partner passed away.  I also assume that means that the alternate team will go in their original berth.  I know that they will handle this well.  I am actually attending the funeral with a NFL VP who is one of my favorite people in the world.  It is just so sad!

I though that last week sucked.  This week has been 150% worse.  I think that I mentioned that my daughter moved home 2 weekends ago.  She hadn’t unpacked much, but she bought a good a new comforter, shams, end tables, etc., but all of her boxes were still in the living room.  Last Sunday she spent the night with her dad and his new girlfriend and her 15 year old daughter.  When she came home Monday all seemed fine.  She like her soon to be step-sister, her brother’s girlfriend made her a jelly bean cake that evening.  I had had a sucky day.  I lost a court case with my old landlord – the big fat liar  that day and H., was very supportive. 

Tuesday she took me to work (her car is in the shop having the engine replaced).  I kissed her goodbye and reminded her to pick me up from the bus stop at 4:30.  I would then take her to work.  I reminded her she was catering at 11.  I had to call her at 7:50 because my class was going to last until 4:30.  I asked her to have her brother take her to work between her shift and pick me up at 5:08 instead.  For some reason – instinct I guess – I texted him to ask him to pick me up at 5:38 instead – it would have given me some time to catch up at my desk since I was essentially out of the office for two days.  He told me she hadn’t come home between shifts. 

Again, instinct – I called work to ask why she didn’t come home between shifts.  I would have to walk 2 miles home from another bus stop and it was darned cold and I didn’t have the right shoes to walk.  A boy I know from when she was in high school answered and said, ‘Mom, H. didn’t show up for her catering shift and she isn’t here for her evening shift either.”  It was about 5:15 by then and she was supposed to be at work at 5.  I panicked.  I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what.   I walked home, took a short cut through the woods, sunk in mud up to my ankles.  I got home and began to hunt around.  On the walk, I called her dad, her best friend, her work, her ex-boyfriend, her current boyfriend, and her old roommate.  No one had heard anything.   At home, I looked for a note because I was pretty certain I knew where this was heading.  I found an IM to her boyfriend who hadn’t logged in since the night before.  It said she was going to commit suicide.  I called her dad back and withing 20 minutes I had 3 policemen her to help fill out the missing persons report and look at the message. 

 Her dad got here right after the police left.  We began calling everyone we knew.  No answer.  We had called hospitals, etc, but no response.  At about 9 pm, I got a call from the hospital near home.  She had come in in the morning with a drug overdose.  They had her in ICU on a ventilator and sedated.  Apparently she took about 30 Ambien, got scared and went to the hospital.  She lost her gag reflex so they did the vent.  It was awful.  We stayed until about 10:30 pm and came home. 

Yesterday I spent the day with her.  They removed all of the machines at about 9 am (they tried at 8 pm, but her O2 levels were too low).  Right now she is at a short term mental health facility.  Last summer she was diagnosed with DID.  So I feel like I am living in a soap opera?  Yes.  She has been diagnosed as bi-polar since she was a pre-teen.  Oddly enough, she was taking her meds, getting along wonderfully at work, has a nice boyfriend, but something else is going on right now.  Her psychiatrist said that one of her multiples is causing the problem.  We are trying to find a psychiatrist who specialized in DID which is hard.  It isn’t common. 

I just wonder what is causing all of the pain in my lovely, lovely 22 year old.  She just turned 22 on the 14th and now….It just sometimes feels as if the world is spiraling downward.  All I can do is stay focused and try to help. 

I hate it, but my boys once again deleted the history and lost my saved password.  It took me forever to get a new one (my fault).  Things are changing here again.  My daughter moved back home (again) and they boys have to share a room again.  My place doesn’t have a basement so they cleaned up the garage and made a place to watch TV, play video games, etc.  At least it gets the music away so I don’t here it through the walls.  My daughter still has boxes everywhere.  And I do mean everywhere.  She has to get them unpacked or stored by the end of the week.   She will be saving money to get her car fixed and I cannot say I really mind. 

Work has been crazy.  My offiicer is losing her mind – I think literally.  She wants to be the person who makes decisions, but now she is having her world and responsibilities decreased.  To be honest, none of us really mind.  For my systems, I had others that I escalate issues to anyway.  The implementation of subject matter experts or SME has been full of problems.  No one bothered to filter information down to the lower level project leaders.  My projects don’t have an actual SME assigned to them so I am in never never land.  When I asked, the answer was that I would be responsible.  Now I have two jobs for the price of one.  Nice job!  I guess it means that I have job security, but damn…  I think of Suz’s comments in her blog and I think – I wish I were far more verbal at work.  In fact, my officer sent me a nasty gram Saturday as she and my supervisior were entering SME for our projects not yet migrating.  I marked a few of mine with a product name (which I knew had no SME, but no one would suggest how I chunk it).  She said i should have asked.  My response (which I took a long time to compose) said I had asked several times.  The SME area that was originally thought to contain it was removed, so I asked my supervisior.  Futhermore, I had my projects ‘chunked’ late on Wednesday.  I left them with my supervisior. If someone had questions, they should have directed them to me on Thursday or Friday.  Her terse response was that I should have followed up.  Hum, she is never around and my supervisior didn’t know.  What was the big deal?  Only that she didn’t know how to chunck them either.  To be honest, this is the crap that has been going on for awhile.  This is the first time that she has been testy, but I will keep the email on hand.

On Thursday, I did send her an email asking for advice on how to handle a project that was chunked out to a SME that has already said he will not address the retirement portion of the system.  My concern was that I didn’t want the team scheduling meetings that included SME that were not willing to handle that part of the system.  Note, I didn’t chunk the project out to that area – my officer did.  She forwarded the email to the VPs, and the SME asking for advice.  The answer from them was that I really was the SME in that area and that I should officially have that job.  Oh yes, aren’t I happy?

 To make matters worse, I am not the only AA in the dog house.  She went through everyones project list and second guessed every single one of us.  My neighbor was furious.  Both of us spent 3 hours past work time to finish the work and then she second guesses us.  In my area, she only assigned statements to the wrong SME, and actually created a new one!  Not the one I was asking about!

Oh well, I feel better now.  I spent all weekend reading and cross-stitching.  That always feels great.  It was relaxing and took my mind off of everything.

 Oh yes, my ex is dating and I hate it!  Who knew that after being divorced almost 13 years that I would be jealous?  It just seems weird.  Our daughter spent the night at his girlfriends and met her 15 year old daughter.  She said she likes her, so that is good.

I admit it, I am a devoted college basketball addict.  I must watch every Big 12 conference game possible, I yell at the TV and am a die hard KU fan.  Basketball just makes me happy.  The game moves quickly, it is athletic, I understand the game, I love the history and it is in my blood.  My fondest memories as a kid were going to KU basketball games with my dad.  We went to as many as possible.  I heard the stories of Allen Field House being built when my dad was in college at KU.  My dad told stories of climbing on the steel beams while under the influence of alcohol – and he hates heights!  While I enjoyed going to football games a KU with my dad and uncle, nothing beat the excitement of JoJo White on the floor at Allen Field House as the call of Rock Chalk Jayhawk KU sounded at the end of the games.  It was and is magical.  Having Danny Manning back at KU as a coach is just part of the KU history.  Man, I love the game! 

I loved high school games, I loved games at Fort Hays when I went there, I loved going to games at U of A watching Lute Olsen’s teams, but KU is just magic.  Win or lose, I love them….!  I loved the family sitting around the TV, I love watching the Big 12 tournment games – sneaking out of work and attending games (I am so glad the Big 12 is back in KC this year). My dream is going to the Final 4 watching KU, Arizona, NC and Georgetown. Don’t ask me why, but it is a dream vacation.  Skip the beach, skip Europe, nothing would be better!    This year with KU undefeated at 16-0 so far, I am loving it.  My dad would have loved it as well. 

All of this is going on while the primary as gearing up.  My other favorite pastime.  I loved the Obama speech after winning the Iowa caucus.  He is a great speaker, but while I love his speaking ability, I don’t think it is enough to get him elected.  I will love to watch as he grows and see if he becomes one of the great orators in the class of Lincoln, MLK, and Kennedy.  I remember at the age of 4 and 5 listening to Kennedy speak.  I was fascinated with MLK’s speechs and even Bobby Kennedy.  While I liked Clinton, his speeches were never ending – a good speech does have an end before the audience falls asleep!  Who knew that I would love oration as much as I do.  Again, it another point of fascination to see how the polls change based upon something that the media is focused upon.  That drives me nuts!  I haven’t made my decision yet, and I probably won’t for awhile, but I want my primary vote to have some meaning.

We are finally nearing the time when we our work paradigm will be changing.  Slowly but surely at least one of the consultant recommendations is being implemented.  Unfortunately for me, it won’t change things much because my areas don’t really have true SME.  I don’t know what that really means to me, but it does change life for project leaders and managers.  It will prove to be a very interesting time in the life of our company.

Then the elections are gearing up now that the first caucus and primary have happened.  It is truly the longest election season ever.  I am a political animal, but for me even this is ridiculous.  I wish the media didn’t make huge pronouncments, but rather just told us the results and shut the pundits up so that the people can make the choice.  It is driving me nuts.  Let us hear Obama, Hillary, and John talk before they decide who will be the democratic nominee.  Same for Romney, Huckabee, and Cain.  I would like the opportunity to at least vote in my primary before it is over too early.