Search This Blog

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Travel Crisis

Life has been exciting at the Doughty house this week. I saw the doctor on Monday, while Deanna was seeing the President, and he told me I needed to rest if I'm ever going to get over this viral junk I have.

Deanna got home with her news about shaking the President's hand and, within two hours, Don called from work to say that he'd been offered a temporary assignment in England for 3 months. We decided to try and work out the details to go.

We've got more details than you have time, so suffice it to say that we still know nothing. It's been a whirlwind last 3 days and we're all beginning to suffer the effects of lack of sleep, excitement, and uncertainty.

Last night, Don held in his hand his Itinerary for his trip, leaving this coming Monday evening and arriving Tuesday morning. We were to follow the following Monday (Nov. 13). However, we found out that the man arranging the trip was using the Corporate Policy, not the Site Policy where Don works, which is a DOE Facility. Everything has had to be scrapped, the appropriate procedures for "government work" followed, and now everything must be signed before we can begin this process all over again. We have no idea how long this is going to take or, even, if it's going to happen. In the meantime, I try and do everything to prepare that I can without actually accomplishing anything. It's all very frustrating.

I mentioned we're all showing signs of wear. In addition to not getting any sleep, I needed additional sleep this week to recover from my virus. I've been grumpy and irritable. The children are much worse than me.

I spent the day Tuesday cooking and serving lunch to a crowd of 30. After school, I worked to get the children ready for an All Saint's Eve Celebration they were going to attend. Thank goodness for Grandma. She came down and helped. Then she and Grandpa took the children to the festival so I could sleep. I woke up from my nap without the headache that had been nauseating me and nagging me for 2 days.

Yesterday, I picked them up from school and we headed out to get Passport photos, then went shopping for boots. Daelyn and I had spent several hours in the morning shopping for appropriate heavy winter clothes. I've been advised to dress the children in layers, so we looked for turtlenecks and sweaters as well as lined pants. Even if we never make it to England, most of these clothes are things they can wear this winter, anyway.

Today we all needed a break. I subbed in Deanna's class from 10:30 to 2:00. Then Grandma came over to stay with Daelyn while he napped so I could pick the other two up from school without having to wake the little guy. We're working on homework (trying to get caught up) and I'm doing laundry.

We all need a little break. Hopefully, this weekend will afford us a little more.

No comments: