The Land of Lincoln

Tonight I am in Springfield, Illinois. I just spent three very intense days reviewing a child abuse prevention program in the Chicago suburbs and now I'm taking two days to drive home. Today was kind of a weird day for me. I finished my work late afternoon and decided to go to IKEA before making the three hour drive to Springfield. My drive to the IKEA store took me through one of the suburbs that was near where I used to live about 8 years ago. I drove by neighborhoods where my friends used to live, stores I used to shop at, churches I used to visit. I used to come back to visit more often, but now, 8 years later, I don't know too many people in the area anymore. It's a very transient area with families moving in and out all the time and most of the families I was close friends with have spread out across the country now. There are still a few people I know in the area, but I didn't make plans to see any of them this trip. Driving through Bolingbrook though, I thought about many of the people I used to know, mainly the kids in the youth group that I used to work with. They were such great kids and I was very sad to leave them, even though I was looking forward to my move back to Kansas. That was when I was in my pattern of moving to a different state and starting a different career path every three years. I always figured that it took me a year to learn a new job, a year to make changes and improvements (the stuff i like to do), and then a year to realize I had changed what I could and the rest would stay the same and it was time to move on. When I got bored, or discouraged, I would just make plans to move and start over. Only now I have been with the same company for 8 years, although I did move cities (from Hutchinson to Wichita) after the first three years. I think the work I do now is just so chaotic that it keeps me interested and each year I still feel like there is a ton of improvements that need to be made, so I keep hanging on. I did realize recently though that I even though I have started to stablize in my job changes, i have continued to change churches every three years. That's kind of pathetic, I think. Now that I'm thinking about it, I haven't attended the same church for more than three years since high school. Hmmmm...

One of the reasons that I drove to Chicago instead of flying was because I wanted to spend some time alone in the car, away from people (the other reason is that every time I fly I think the plane is going to crash and I'm going to die and I just don't need that kind of anxiety this week). My drive to Chicago was good. I left work on Friday afternoon to head for Hannibal, Missouri. I had been in a meeting most of the day and was intending to leave as soon as it was over, but as luck had it, I took a few minutes to get in a fight with my boss before I left. Actually it wasn't really a fight, but it was ugly. My boss asked my opinion on something, and I shared my opinion in a very blunt and unkind way that was very hurtful to her. Why? I don't know. There were probably a million ways to say it that would have been kinder than what I did. I was really frustrated about something and she happened to ask about it and I just spewed everwhere. So most of my six hour drive on Friday was spent dwelling on that. I called and left many apologetic voicemails, and then sent apologetic emails from my hotel room later that night. She was very kind and said it was no big deal, but it was a big deal to me.

I was intending to hang out in Hannibal the next morning for a few hours, looking at all the Mark Twain stuff. But I changed my mind. I never did get past the first few chapters of Tom Sawyer (though I brought it with me to finish) and I wasn't in the mood to stay in Hannibal. I had remembered on my drive that some of my ancestors were from Missouri and Illinois, so I pulled up my geneology records on my laptop to see if there were any gravesites on my route that I could check out. One of my great, great, great grandfathers was supposed buried in the national cemetary in Quincy, IL and it was only 20 minutes so I decided to go there instead. After much searching I found the national cemetary, but didn't see my ancestor listed in the registry. It was a small cemetary so i decided to walk it to double check. Sure enough, he's not buried there. There was also an IL veterans cemetary in the town, so I thought maybe that was where I might find him, but when I got to that cemetary it was so big there was no way I could look for him and I couldn't find a registry. So I gave up and took some back roads up to Chicagoland. It was a nice drive and gave me lots of time to think. I kept thinking about the song by Reliant K, "Pressing On" and this line...."I left my worries all behind...my problems fell out the back of mind". I always liked that visual, of all my worries just falling out of the back of head as I moved forward without them. Spattering my brain matter all over the highway :)

Tomorrow I think I'm going to visit the President Lincoln museum and memorial sites, but I'll decide for sure in the morning. That's my favorite part about driving by myself. I always make a tentative agenda, but I like being able to change it whenever I want. I like getting up in the morning and pulling out my atlas to decide what route I want to take that day and where I want to stop. It's the opposite of my recent NYC trip where we followed the agenda to the minute and had all of our routes (including walking routes) planned out months in advance. Crazy!

Girl Meets God and Tom Sawyer

Every time I travel I pack numerous books that I've been wanting to read, hoping I can find more time to read away than I do at home. On this last trip I took three books, but of course I only had time to read one of them. However, the one I picked was perfect! I read the memoir by Lauren Winner called Girl Meets God. It's about her experience growing up Jewish and then converting to Christianity. It was very interesting and an easy read and taught me a lot about Judiasm that I did not know. But what was most fun about the book is that while she was writing most of it, she was a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, which happened to be just a few blocks from the hotel I stayed at while I was there. I figured this out on the plane while I was flying out there and I had a free evening before meeting my friends the next day, so I walked up to the campus and visited the bookstore. I also walked by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Riverside Church, Barnard College, and Union Theological Seminary after I ventured a little too close to Harlem, and then headed over to Grants Tomb and walked home through Riverside Park. I really wanted to find the place in Riverside Park where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet in You've Got Mail, but I think I didn't go far enough south. It's a four mile park!

But it was really fun to read the book and know that she was writing it just down the street from where I was at. In a few weeks I am going to Aurora, IL (just outside Chicago) for a short work trip. I decided to drive, even though it's about eleven hours, because I have not done a long road trip in awhile, and I really don't enjoy flying that much anymore. I'm always afraid I'm going to die and frankly, I have enough anxiety in my life and I don't need to worry about dying too!

Initially I was going to try to take a few days to do some fun stuff in Chicago, but after New York I'm not really in the mood for the city again so soon. And I've done a lot of the Chicago stuff before when I used to live up there during grad school. So I've decided to do my tourist stuff on the road there and back. I'm thinking of visiting the Lincoln memorial in Springfield, IL because I love visiting historic sites and that is one I've never been too. Then on the way back I want to stop in Hannibal, Missouri, the home of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). My very first trip to Chicago was in college when my friend Rebecca and I drove to Springfield for our friends wedding (Kim & Dwight) and then decided at the last minute that we had to drive on to Chicago because neither of us had ever been. We had fun and I remember on the way home Rebecca really wanted to stop in Hannibal but for some reason we didn't. I can't remember if we ran out of time or what. I had never heard of Hannibal, so Rebecca told me all about it. I remember her saying that she wanted to teach English and thought it would be cool to have visited there and be able to talk about it when she taught about Mark Twain. And ever since then I have wanted to go.

Last week I stopped in the used bookstore by my house and picked up copies of Tom Sawyer, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, and a short biography on Mark Twain in preparation for my trip to Hannibal. I can't remember if I read them when I was younger or not, but if i did, I don't remember much, so I wanted to read them again. So far all I've done is read the first few chapters of Tom Sawyer, but I'm having trouble with the grammar because it was written so long ago. I've never really enjoyed reading old classics like Charles Dickens for this very reason. I only understand modern language. I might need to go purchase the cliff notes. Do they even make cliff notes for Tom Sawyer?

Here's a photo of one of the smaller buildings that is a part of the Catherdral of St. John the Divine up near Columbia University. I love visiting the amazing church buildings in New York!

My mean self

I'm still exhausted, trying to get caught up on rest from my quick trip to New York City last week. When I got back to work last week I had a ton of stuff waiting for me. It was no suprise though, because it was mostly the stuff I didn't have time to finish before I left, so I knew it would be waiting. I worked a little from home on the 4th, then pushed really hard Thursday and Friday to get more done, but I'm still so behind. I brought lots of work home this weekend, but I just haven't had the heart to dive into it yet. I've been really stressed about work and my inability to keep up with things and had several fights with my boss about it over the last few days. Friday she wanted to talk about it again, right before I had a stressful conference call that I was in charge of. It was a short, heated discussion that resolved nothing and resulted in my slamming my door after she left. My boss is great and she takes it all in stride when I get like this and can still joke about things. Later that day we were meeting with one of the accountants who needed some answers from us and she smiled and looked at me and replied "Kelly and I are still fighting about that one. We'll let you know who wins".

I appreciate that she lets me be confrontational with her and just engages in those arguements without getting mad at me. It's because she's reading these management books that talk about how conflict is healthy as long as it leads to resolution. And I'm kind of taking advantage of that. But I don't like it at all when I get like this. I don't like to be mad and mean, which is exactly what I am whenever we talk. I feel like I'm sort of stuck and am not sure what to do. The way I figure it, my choices are either to look for a new job, accept my fate at my current job and just start working more hours so I can get things done, or stay at my current job and refuse to work the extra hours and let things drop off my plate. The problem is, I like my job and I don't really want to leave, but I can't bring myself to let things drop. It's just not in me. All of the projects I am involved with support the work that others do, so if I let things drop, it causes problems for others and I can't stand that. So I think I just work the extra hours for now and hope things change in the future. And try not to be so mean at work. Or maybe avoid people more so they don't realize how mean I am when I am stressed :)

NYC

I just got back from New York City yesterday. I think I will be recovering for about a week. It's not so much that the city wore me out, but I learned that I am not cut out for a Scharping Family Vacation. It was great in the sense that I got to see more sites than I ever thought possible over a three day period, and I definitely enjoyed my humorous travel companions (like the statue of liberty impersonator shown above). But I like a lot of down time and this was not included on the schedule. And it was a tight schedule! Jeff started planning the schedule months ago, building his vacation binder with subway schedules, mapquest directions, brochures, etc. When I first saw the schedule for the NYC part of the trip (this is the only part I joined them for.....I could not have possibly survived the full two weeks which included numerous stops along the east coast), I laughed and told him there was no way to do all those things in one day. But I was wrong. What I should have said is there is no way a normal person would want to do all those things in one day. Because what I learned is that it is possible.....if get up at 6:00 am and go straight through until 11:00 pm! And walk about 20 miles in between! Here's what we did on Sunday (I like to refer to this as "marathon day"):

Subway to Brooklyn

Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge

City Hall

Ground Zero

NY Stock Exchange

Wall Street

St. Paul's church

Trinity church

China Town

Little Italy

Subway to midtown

St. Patricks Cathedral

Saks Fifth Avenue

American Girl Store

Subway to Central Park

Sit in the park for 30 minutes (YEA!)

David Letterman Studio

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Deli

Ruperts Diner

The Top of Rockafeller Center

Times Square

Subway back to the hotel

Whew! It makes me tired all over again just remembering all that!!! The other days were a little slower and Jeff even let us sleep in until 9:00 on Monday. The highlight of the trip was of course the Yankee game. Here's a photo before the game

And I have to add the photo of Lizzie (at the top of the post) for fun. Several times throughout the weekend, when I would take a picture or something would happen, she would ask me "are you going to put that on your blog?", so I thought it only fair that I put her picture on my blog.

It was a great weekend, and I'm sure I'm leaving out some important parts, but it's late so I'll have to add more tomorrow.

I'm going on sabbatical

I wish I were going on a real sabbatical, but I'm just going on a blog sabbatical. Summer has started and it is proving to be a VERY busy time at work and will be for the next two months. I'm afraid if I blog it will be about how stressed out I am at work and I don't think anyone wants to read about that on an ongoing basis. I do have some fun trips planned this summer, one to New York with some friends in a few weeks, and a work trip to Chicago next month, so maybe I can find some fun things to write about when those trips happen. OR, maybe I will write about how irritated I am that I have to take my laptop to New York and do work in the evenings because we will have online classes going on.

So instead of blogging, this is what I'm working on instead:

• We just submitted our grant proposal for the second year of the Pilot Pre K program in Sedgwick county and should hear back next week as to how much $$$ we are awarded. Once that happens we'll starting planning for the next school year. We had 10 classrooms this year and are hoping to add three more with the expansion money. Part of my job is to oversee this grant - a project that is a lot of fun for me!
• We have another big grant due in two weeks and my boss decided to break her shoulder over the weekend, so I have a feeling I may be doing more writing of that grant than I originally thought, but that's okay. I like grant writing. This grant will include the eLearning online classes that I help teach.
• Starting July 1 my boss has asked me to take over managing out eLearning program. I will continue teaching classes, but will take on some oversight too. I'm excited about this and will be working with our contractor to brainstorm new ideas and try to think outside the box on how to expand the program more in the next year.
• My last big project (there are a million little ones!) for the summer is that they just put me in charge of our training charter which is supposed to be pulling together a staff development plan for all of our employees statewide. We've done some work, but there is lots left to do and I'm a little overwhelmed with how we are going to get it done. Anyone know of any good ethics or customer service trainings we can provide???
• Oops, I forgot one. Or two. My work trip in July is to go audit a child abuse prevention program in Illinois and I just got all of their pre site stuff this week. It will involve about 20 hours of prep time to get ready for the audit, and then I just found out that they changed our standards and I have to go through a 15 hour online training before I can start going through their presite stuff. I started the training today but it gave me a headache so I finally gave up and went home early. I also have a two day training to give in Kansas City the first week of August, so sometime over the summer, I need to prepare that curriculum.

See, I was right. All I am able to focus on is how overwhelmed I am work. The problem is that i love my job and all the projects they give me. There just isn't enough time in the week to do them all!!!

I promise my next post (it will be weeks away) will be more positive. And funny.

I want to play too!

The church bloggers are playing this game and even though I didn't get officially tagged, I'm going to play anyway. Here's my seven facts...

1. when I was kid I used to love to organize my books and my baseball cards. I would take all my books off the bookshelf and then put them back alphabetical by author, then take the off and do them alphabetical by title, then by size, then by topic, etc. I had about 3000 baseball cards and I used to sort them by different categories too, just for fun. I would sort them all by teams (the obvious choice), then position, then by the number on the back of the cards, etc. Organizing things has always been a fun game to me.

2. when I make a friend, they are a friend for life. It takes me a long time to make new friends and once I do, I keep them forever! I put a lot of effort into keeping in touch with my old friends and treasure them very much.

3. I am an INTJ (we just had to do the myers-briggs at work this week)

4. I love to work. Even though I complain about my job non-stop, I love to work and actually enjoy going to the office everyday. I love being productive.

5. I hate sports. I hate playing them and I especially hate watching them on television. The only time I like to watch is if someone I know is playing, like my friends' children. My summer vacation is going to NY to watch the Yankees - how ironic is that? At least "live" games are tons better than watching on television.

6. I love to travel to places I have never been before, and I really enjoy traveling alone with no itinerary.

7. I am freakishly addicted to my to do lists. I have my official work to do list that I type up every few weeks. I take it with me to every meeting and bring it home almost every night. I also usually have a daily to do list at work that I put on a post note it or note pad and keep right in front of me. At home I have a weekly to do list that I carry with me around the house and put by my bedside at night so it is the last thing I look at before bed and the first thing I review in the morning. I also have my church to do list where I keep track of the children's ministry stuff I have to do. I once read that to do lists are a coping mechanism that people with anxiety issues use. I like to think of it as my medication. Instead of taking anxiety meds, I make to do lists.

7 1/2. I have a cruel sense of humor and have often hurt people's feelings with my sarcasm and lack of sensitivity. When people ask me a question, usually the first thing that comes to my mind is a smart alec remark and it takes more effort to keep that to myself and give a straight answer. I can thank my dad for that. For example, at house church this week Jim was talking about the Trinity and immediately I thought - the Trinity is like Kris and Paul and Anna, they are all dependent upon one another (at that moment Anna and Paul were crawling all over Kris and she was not looking very happy). But I kept that thought to myself because it was a serious conversation and I didn't want to ruin it. I couldn't think of anything serious to say, so I made no comment.

Happy Summer

from my friend Jack in Denver...he was named after me. My middle name is Jo and my friend Tracey wanted to name her son after me so she picked a "J" name. Oh wait, I think he was named after C.S. Lewis, who also went by Jack. I have read many books by C.S. Lewis, so it's still sort of like he is named after me. Sort of.....maybe his middle name is Joe. Jack Joe Lawrence. That's pretty!