Day is done, and that is good

I am sitting here in the almost dark, the fireplace and the glow of the computer screen providing the only light.  My music is playing a bit too loud for an apartment complex, but it needs to be loud today.  On the couch next to me is a plate of fresh mozzarella, grapes and a pear, a bowl of oil and the last of my decent balsamic from Italy, and some surprisingly good bread with a crunchy crust.  On the table near me is a glass of the best bottle Chianti I could find in St Cloud.  And the bottle (and the plate) is less full than it was a bit ago.

While I am noshing away, I can peek out of the window at the falling snow.  Though I doubted it, we will get all of 6 inches of snow and then some tonight and tomorrow.  It is blizzardly, to say the least.  All I can say is that it wears on you. People have commented that it has affected the College--student attendance (and for that matter, faculty attendance).  Tempers are short(er) and it really is hard to get up and going in the morning, or so I have heard.  We are going on more than 5 months of winter and snow on the ground, and it will be weeks before all this disappears.  No doubt the snow will be followed by floods and then locusts and then boils.

As much as the weather is staying the same, work is changing dramatically and quickly.  My dream team of enrollment specialists and administrative staff is being broken up, or re-tasked to meet greater College needs.  Yay.  Good for the College, and great for our students.  Really.  And a wonderful opportunity for the advising staff and concrete recognition of their skill and how good they are.  I am very proud of them.  And maybe a tiny bit of proud of me, too.  I worked hard with this team and I am taking a tiny bit of credit for their success, though only a little tiny bit of credit.  They are great.

That said, this presents some challenges for me and for what I am trying to accomplish.  I am not even sure where my office will be, much less how I will handle my part of the advising.  April snows and all that cover this up for a bit, but by May 1, most of the changes will be in place.  I have told other people that our job descriptions never promise that we will be happy or that it will be easy or that you always get your way.  They should have mentioned that the job will pay for an occasional bottle of decent wine or other therapy,  so all is good.