It's just beautiful outside with a fresh new snow perfect for making snowmen.  The snow is still sticking to each individual branch and it would be perfect for taking photos if the light were just a bit more crisp - not that "crisp" is really a description for light, but hey that's how I'm thinking this morning.  While I haven't checked in here in awhile, I've been very, VERY busy over the last two weeks.  Vacation always brings an avalanche of work on return.  I've got an intern under me right now, so that in itself was much better than it could have been.  The changes to our department, and how we manage our caseload, however, was Major, and came on the heels of getting caught up from being gone.  It's a long day at the office when you don't leave until 3rd shift arrives.

All the changes to our case management, for as painful as they are now, will really be better in the long run, but at the same time as this is happening larger structural changes are taking place in the agency, which is putting A LOT of stress on management.  This is trickling down in unpleasant ways.  I won't get into the details.  Suffice it to say, whereas my job has never been quite the match for me, in the past couple of weeks I've felt rather like it is more thankless and soul-sucking than ever.

On way in which unpleasantness has occurred, which found its way back home is punctuality.  Generally I am on time, if not early to meetings, but there have been comments about locking doors so people cannot come in late, so as you can imagine, I've been putting a little more effort into getting there on early lately. On one of these mornings, Mozart was having a particularly bad time of it.  I was getting him dressed and as TW popped out of the shower, I noticed the time.  I say to Mozart that I've got to have Mommy finish up as they are cracking down on punctuality at work.  Suddenly he is reduced to tears and telling me that I can't crack down. Poor kid, in his emotionally fragile state(little did I know he was on the verge of getting sick), probably had an image of me cracking like an egg shell.

While Mozart ended up missing a couple days of daycare, I've managed to stay mostly healthy.  I've popped more Vitamin C and taken more elderberry syrup than average, and have managed to not come down with anything in full.  This morning, though, on waking I felt rather drugged and like I could sleep another three hours when woken up at 9am!  I've felt muscle-sore over the past two days, which seems to have gone today, but seriously - that is FOUR hours later than I usually sleep!  So much for catching a few photos of the snow at dawn!

I've had my coffee now and am feeling a bit more alive.  The snow hasn't melted off yet, so there is hope of getting a few shots if it can just brighten up a bit.  And hope of getting my glasses adjusted, doing a bit of shopping, and perhaps building a snowman.  If TW gets home in time I can even get to the gym.  Maybe.  Perhaps an Epson Salt bath would be a better option for today...