Why hello there! Clearwater Beach + other recent updates

I have had a bit of a WEEK, on the heels of my week away in Clearwater Beach, Florida. Nothing is ‘wrong’, per se, I just felt like my life this week went perpetually from one thing to another to another with little to no whitespace.

I had plans (and/or significant driving) of some sort every night this week, too – a soccer volunteer planning meeting on Monday, Asher’s volleyball game (5:30) + Ethan’s soccer game (7:00) on Tuesday, I had my own volleyball game on Wednesday (right after work), followed by drinks with a teammate (yes, this was technically optional…I’m not saying I had NO whitespace…this was fun and I don’t regret it, but I was still out of the house and not dealing with the piled up tasks I kind of needed to be!), and then last night was Ethan’s Senior Night + soccer game.

Work has been very mentally challenging this week. I have a really heavy load right now in general, and this week included several “urgent” requests (i.e. stop what you thought you were going to be doing and pivot to this instead, which is soooo exasperating….) and I’m also leading 2 new PI projects.

Both of these projects are stretching me a bit professionally. I’m working with some new people on these, and I’m also just wading into some new territory. There have been some personality and engagement challenges, I’m trying to figure out certain logistics and organization tactics, and both of these projects are larger in scope and involve a lot of moving parts. By the end of the day, I feel like I’ve been doing brain teasers and my head hurts from all the thinking and mental gymnastics. I feel like my job is increasingly full of “invisible” work- you know the kind, where a single meeting on your calendar “looks” like a 1 hour thing, but it’s actually requiring 3x (or more) than that in coordination and planning and emails and follow up….none of which is really accounted for in your overall workload….

Additionally, sometimes I struggle with imposter syndrome. I’ll think, “gah, I’m just a nurse!! I don’t actually have a project management degree or anything!!” But ultimately I know that I can do this, I’m smart, I’m capable, I have had some formal training in this area, and I’ve received a lot of positive feedback this week, too. So I try to quiet the little nay-sayer that likes to hitchhike in my head. 🙂 And also, I try to remind myself that there’s often not really one “right” way to do things.

It’s just been a lot. Last week in Florida was great (more on that in a minute), but I came back to a lot of catch up work. I had a couple of super late nights/ poor sleep this week that screwed me up some, too. My weary, overstimulated brain needed more rest, not less, and I really didn’t give it that. The house feels in mild disarray but I haven’t had many free moments to deal with it! (And everyone here has been busy this week…). I’ve been in that frustrating cycle where I’m basically trying to fit like 1.5 days worth of stuff into 1 day all week, resulting in me just kind of rushing around ineffectively and always feeling a day late and a dollar short… ha. Hence no blogging.

Anyway! We have a very open looking weekend, so I’m feeling more positive energy right now. 🙂

Let’s catch up!

Conference in Clearwater Beach!

I had full intentions to try to blog in real time last week, but quickly found… basically no time for this. 🙂 I traveled with a friend/ colleague so we spent most of our limited “free time” together, plus the mornings started early!

I’m sure no one really wants to hear every detail about the Transplant Quality conference I was at, so I’ll just give some highlights.

🔷 The hotel (Opal Sol) was beautiful! RIGHT on the gulf. I had a wonderful King room all to myself with a perfect balcony.

🔷 We enjoyed as much as we could, given that we were sitting in a conference room from Tuesday morning until Friday afternoon! We were happy that we chose the earlier flight down on Monday– we had a lovely walk on the beach + an early beachfront dinner (where we both got pina coladas and I got grilled grouper).

The pools looked enticing:

We each retreated to our rooms for a bit over sunset… I had a post-dinner cup of tea and watched the sun go down.

We reconvened a bit later to hang out by one of the beautiful fire pits on the pool deck.

🔷 I squeezed in a couple workouts- Tuesday morning I did an Upper Body strength, and Wednesday I did an incline treadmill walk. But then the breakfast start times shifted even earlier and…. I gave up. Haha.

🔷 On Tuesday after the conference, Kim and I went to the beach! We both were like, We have to get some beach time in! Thankfully we had beautiful weather all week. Sounds like the Gulf is in a different state this week, so thank goodness we went when we did. We lounged on towels and talked and even went for a swim.

After that, I jumped in the (huge!) hot tub alone for a bit, and then we cleaned up and walked to another beachy restaurant with live music. This whole area is super walkable! Loved that.

🔷On Wednesday part of me wished I were headed out to the beach instead of more conference, but alas, we dutifully put on work clothes and headed downstairs… 😉

One perk was that we could take our breaks outside! We always stepped out to bask in the sun for a bit in between sessions.

There was a cocktail party/ networking reception after that days’ events, so we had (2!) glasses of wine there and a bunch of heavy apps. Talked to some interesting people, learned some things, and the views were not bad either.

We each took a little breather after that in our own rooms. She and I get along so well and we remarked that we were really compatible travelers! 🙂 But still, conferences are a LOT of together time with other people. It was nice to have some breaks, too.

I really loved the cozy, pretty look of my room.

We decided to meet back up later to go for a swim after dark! The pools were SO WARM and amazing. The boys would have loooooved this. I told Ivan we will need to go back here… No pics, but we swam and floated and chatted for a long time and then went in the hot tub.

🔷Thursday was our big day- our presentation!! Speaking of stretching myself, this was definitely a new experience for me, presenting at a national conference. First time! 🙂 It was in the afternoon and went great. We got lots of praise and nice comments from people who seemed to find it interesting.

We had decided that for our last night we’d go to a “fancier” dinner, in celebration. We toasted our success:

And I treated myself to a full slice of key lime pie after dinner, too. (She got gelato.)

We snagged someone to snap our picture together- we had tried to “coordinate” our outfits a little bit (not really, but mostly to make sure we wouldn’t clash horribly on stage or something…), and both ended up in blacks/ neutrals.

We were stuffed and didn’t even want more to drink, but we hung out by the pool bar area for a while and ended up talking to several cool people from other transplant centers! She headed up to bed earlier, but I got into a long conversation with 2 fun women and stayed up a bit too late chatting with them. 🙂

🔷Friday was our last day (~4:30 p.m. flights home). She wanted to do an early morning beach walk, so I told her to go ahead alone and gave her space (again, we were together a lot….) and I took myself down to an early morning swim/ hot tub session! It was amazing. Empty except for quiet music playing and it was sooooo warm…..

Then a few more hours of conferencing before catching an Uber back to the airport.

Kim took this cool pic looking down at the entrance of one of the hotel restaurants and I thought it was so pretty:

Well, I had some other life updates to share- Homecoming was last weekend for both boys, fall really arrived while I was away, and I need to share some pics of Ethan’s very special and bittersweet Senior Night last night!- but I’m running out of steam now. So, hopefully I will be back before another 2 weeks go by….. 🙃

How’s everything going in your world?! I missed blogging. I miss my blog buddies/readers!!!

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for this new fall mug I got last weekend at the grocery store! $4.99. 🙂 I LOVE IT. Nice and big and I just feel so festive lifting it up to take a sip on work meetings, hahaha.