So the craziness of the past week and a half is done, and I'm looking forward to a busy, but not insane week ahead. Now that I have time to breathe, ( let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. )

Due to a conjunction of a huge project at work hitting this week and a couple of personal projects happening this weekend, I'm pretty stressed out right now. Hopefully I'll be able to write up last weekend's doings (including working a 14.5 hour shift on Saturday) and Monday's trip to see the Beach Boys at Ravinia. That'll have to wait until next week, though - too much going on right now. If I seem a bit short when you IM me, I ask for your patience. I'll be better next week, really!

Yuck. I woke up a few times last night so I'm really dragging this afternoon. Fun.

Not a bad weekend overall. We were up far too early Saturday to drive down to Naperville to meet up with unclekage, who was in town for Duckon. Breakfast was acquired at Juicy-O (missed you by 24 hours, perro!). As always, the meal was excellent and we had a great time discussing last-minute Anthrocon business. We hung out and talked a bit more (and complained about Anthrocon's stealing Midwest FurFest's ideas on a certain nifty tidbit, though really it was just that they hit on an idea at the same time we did :-) then we took our leave. On the way home we picked up a few things from the MFF storage locker and ran a few errands, then takaza took a short nap once we got back home.

A short while later it was down to Lincolnshire to see Kung Fu Panda on the biiiiig IMAX screen with linnaeus, genet, and midwestcougar. The movie was technically excellent - they did a really great job on the textures and the character design, and that was really highlighted on the ginormous screen. The content of the movie...Eh. I'd call it adequately entertaining, but nothing too fantastic. My biggest problem is the same one I always have with stars cast in voice roles - Jack Black spoke and I didn't see a giant panda, I saw Jack Black. Others may not have a problem with this and may enjoy the movie more, but it didn't really blow me away.

After the movie Jaycee had to take her leave, but the rest of us drove through a sudden thunderstorm up to Gurnee to meet roho for a tasty Indian meal at Bombay City. Nom naan nom!

Sunday was stressful, even though we didn't even leave the house. I spent the day working on Artists Alley stuff, programming registers, finalizing documentation, and other fun stuff like that. I got most of what I wanted to accomplish done, but I still have several documents to write up. Dan was working on similar things for the finance office and I think we both got stressed out and started annoying each other. We got it worked out, though, and were able to relax later in the evening.

And here we are, eight days before we hit the road for Pittsburgh. I still have a lot to do, including making the Artists Alley/Con Store staff schedule. It looks like we'll be getting together with some friends on Wednesday, then next weekend is pretty much shot with Dan's company picnic and other stuff going on. I should be able to take a breather sometime around July 4th. Yowza!

I started the day feeling completely out of kilter. Long lists of stuff to get done for MFF and for work, weaving in and out of each other, all seemingly insurmountable. After spending the morning across the campus and having gotten a very tasty chicken avocado wrap for lunch, things are looking much better. There's still a ton of stuff that I have to get done, but it's no longer quite so scary.

We had a very enjoyable weekend. Friday evening we had a lovely dinner with genet (unfortunately, roho's soul was still being consumed by his employer), then got to relax and unwind a bit. Following a lazy Saturday morning, takaza and I did a bit of cooking for daveqat's birthday party - Dan made cheezy mashed potatoes with bacon, and I made a warm potato-bacon salad (which was supposed to be a warm salad with bacon and Jerusalem artichoke, but alas, Garden Fresh had no Jerusalem artichokes in stock). For the bacon trifecta, I made pig candy, which was served with brie and sliced pears. Most people who tried it really liked it. The party on Saturday night was quite a lot of fun, and much booze was consumed.

On Sunday we met mirkowuff and perro for lunch at Osteria di Tramonto (yum!) then gave Perro a tour of the new MFF hotel. As he mentioned in his entry today, it's going to be tricky: we have more space to work with, but the way that the space is divided up makes things rather tricky. I think that Perro will do a great job. By the way, Perro has also been named my Vice-Chair for this year. While traditionally that has been a role for the next chairman, in this case I don't care about that. I'm more interested in making sure that we have someone who can reliably answer questions and act in the chairman's role when I am unavailable.

Next up was the first MFF staff meeting of the year. I didn't quite get it in under an hour, but I was close. We covered a lot of ground, and got a lot accomplished. Staff members, if you didn't see the minutes on the staff mailing list, they have also been posted to the staff area of the Midwest FurFest forums. Sunday evening I got a bit of unwelcome news that is going to take some time to figure out how to deal with. Part of the fun of being con chair, I guess.

Finally, I just finished registering for Furry Connection North. We're still working on the accommodations, but we should have that nailed down in the next few days. Woohoo!

And so the week trudges on. Yay.

The last two days were rather stressful. On Monday I was inundated with MFF-related stuff, and tried to get it all cleared away, with mixed success. At the same time the pressure was on at work to get some documents out, and now it appears that they will be up for review next Wednesday - my last day before my MFF "vacation". I had hoped to leave early that day - I hope it can get through with minimal corrections. In the evening, both takaza and I were snappish, and we stayed up for too late talking over convention-related stuff with linnaeus

Yesterday, work was hectic again. Afterwards I had a doctor's appointment in Vernon Hills (see my next post for that). I didn't get out from there until 4:45 PM, and in the meantime it appeared that someone has dropped a big ol' stupid bomb on all of the northern suburbs of Chicago. The expressways were completely stopped, and I wound up having to go off to surface streets, and even then I pretty much had my very-detailed road atlas open because I had to do some exotic navigation*. I didn't get home until just before 6:30.

Dan had beat me home (that's pretty unusual), and he met me at the door. After helping me take my jacket off, he led me back to the bedroom and gave me the most wonderful back- and foot-rub ever. And to top it off, he made dinner, too! My husband is pretty damn wonderful, I think. I took a break from MFF stuff for the night and found that helped a lot, too.

So today, it's back to work, nose to the grindstone, blah blah blah. I have some scheduling to work out (I had everything exactly right, then there was a slight change and someone yelled "JENGA!" and the whole thing fell apart). Still, the reason for the change is a good one and the net outcome is better so I don't really have any complaints.

* {Take a deep breath} Tri-State (wait in backup) to Edens Spur (wait in backup) to Waukegan Road (wait in backup) to Dundee to Meadow to Shermer to Willow to Patriot to Chestnut to Lehigh to Harlem to Oakton to Central to Howard to Lincoln to Jersey to Kedzie to Carmen to Troy to HOME!