Cruisin USA

We leave tomorrow morning on our 12 day road trip!  I'm so excited, I've been looking forward to this trip for months.  It's gonna be nice to have so many days off work in a row and I desperately needed a vacation.  Plus it's gonna be a great chance for Lionel and I to spend some quality time together exploring and discovering after a year and a half of working opposing schedules and not seeing much of one another.

 a basic drawing of our planned road trip route

 

So I doubt that you'll hear from me over the next 12 days, but when I get back expect lots of pictures and stories of our experience cruising the USA!

Crevée

I have been so incredibly busy lately I just haven’t found any time for blogging.  I haven’t been able to keep up with the blogs I like to read and I haven’t been able to find the time to think of a potential blog post let alone actually post on my blog.

While we were in Chicago we left Lionel’s car at the shop to get some work done.  The trunk had decided to stop opening, along with one of the doors.  We figured we absolutely had to get these two problems fixed before we could put the car up for sale.  When we got back from our trip the car was ready but man were we shocked by the final bill!  So I’ve been keeping myself busy by picking up hours working for my dad in the evenings and on weekends to try to make up for the financial hit we took.

We have also put the car up for sale, and I’m very stressed about selling it.  Only one person has expressed any interest but that person hasn’t responded to my last correspondence.  I really would like to have it sold before our road trip, but that is looking like it probably won’t happen.

I’ve also officially put in notice at my job.  I informed my boss of my plans to return to France last Wednesday and she took it better than I expected.  Though she is sad to see me go she said she understood and wasn’t too surprised because she knew that Lionel wasn’t happy in the US.  She also informed the vice president who was very disappointed and wanted to find a way to have me continue in my position from France.  While this would be absolutely great for me, it just isn’t feasible and would really hinder operations.  So I am helping them try to find my replacement before I go and my boss is hoping to find someone by the beginning of May so that I will still be around to help train them.  I will be working through May 10, but they are letting me take two weeks of PTO for our road trip, so I can’t complain too much and it helps pad the bank account a little bit.

I’ve also been very busy trying to prepare for our road trip and squeeze in time to see friends around my hectic work schedule.  Most of the rest of our preparations for the actual move to France will wait until after we return from the road trip, but Lionel and I have started looking at the job market in Bordeaux and I have a few positions I am hoping to find the time to apply for this week.  Though I doubt it will come to anything since I am still in the US and won’t be in France for over a month, I figure it definitely can’t hurt to try.

Not only have I been very busy but I’ve also been extremely stressed about resigning from my job, selling Lionel’s car, getting ready for our road trip, preparing for the move, the arrival in France, finding jobs in France, our overall futures, etc, etc, etc.  Let’s just say there has been a lot of stress and it has really been keeping me from sleeping.  The lack of sleep combined with working 55-60 hours a week, not including my commute, just means I am completely drained.  When I get home from work I just want to collapse, my brain barely functions during the day, I look and feel like a train wreck and I can barely keep my eyes open behind my computer all day at work.  I absolutely cannot wait for our road trip because I am in desperate need of a vacation.  After all, I haven’t had a proper vacation since our cruise to the US.  In fact, the closest I’ve come to a vacation in the past year and 4 months is either my work trip to St. Maarten (I was still working, but at least I could see a beach…) or having 4 days off in a row at Christmas.

On the bright side (literally and figuratively), the weather has vastly improved and we are enjoying temperatures in the mid to upper 70s (23-26 degrees Celsius) with sunshine.  This weather definitely helps improve my mood quite a bit, so even though I’m stressed and exhausted, at least it is warm out and the sun is shining.  It’s better than nothing!

Anyway, all this to say that I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a few weeks but things have just been very hectic.  I’m hoping that this weekend I’ll be able to find the time to catch up on blogs, but my main priority, outside of working of course, will definitely be sleep!