OMG, are you serious? Labor Day is right around the fucking corner? Well, it’s been another busy month– yeah, my main problem? I’m work-obsessed. Of course, I could be much worse, but I dunno, for some reason that part of the brain just never truly shuts off. My coworker who has seen web updates and work emails from me at all hours of the night, insists that I have a row of different colored light bulbs above my bed. Anytime I receive an email reporting some issue from a specific department, its corresponding light flashes and I immediately awake to handle the issue. Yup, my work is uber important. Like I said, saving lives over here.

The good news is I enjoy my work (still), so I guess that means I don’t mind processing emails as I get them (rather than wait until office hours). Good thing, right? Anyway, August is a busy month at work. We just released our Annual Report newsletter, and I launched our 2nd annual photo contest. Also, we have some projects on fast track with the Goog as well as some upcoming video projects. Ugh, just so much to do. And because it’s the web and people see cool web stuff all the damn time, I feel this extra pressure to keep having a wow factor. I know, not sustainable with a one-person web team but still.

I’m also continuing to make good contacts at work, which helps with moving projects along. I feel like all that social anxiety crap I worked through in Shanghai really paid off. I’ve developed some really helpful connections with contractors for work projects, so that makes things so much easier. Once I find the superstars, things aren’t so bad. Although, I will say, my developers never seem to want to get paid. They cannot provide detailed invoices to save their lives. I have yet to figure out what that is about. Meanwhile, I continue doing what I do naturally– I ride ass every few days. Eventually, they have to give in.

In other work-related news, we had our annual recognition event last Saturday. Every year our department organizes a huge party with pre-event activities, an awards program, gift baskets, catered food, booze… it’s huge and very stressful and quite laborious. Anyway, it went really well, so big sigh of relief. On to the next gabillion events put on by my department (public affairs). Yes, putting on the ritz is actually exhausting.

Outside of work, John and I recently discovered that he should be able to qualify for unemployment, so that’s wonderful news for us. We’re doing really well with budgeting, but the extra money will give us a bit more breathing room. Seriously though, we’re educated folks. Why didn’t we know about unemployment before? Damn system. It’s just like the taxes. When you don’t know about stuff, you can really lose out. That’s probably the reason my parents are always “suggesting” that I go to law school. Then, at least I’ll be in the know.

John is doing well. He’s been focusing the bulk of his energies on exercising (he’s at his lowest weight since moving over here in 2006!), gardening, and cooking. He’s intermittently programming, but it seems his true interests lie with food sourcing and cooking… we’ll see what happens.

Btw, I realized the other day that I haven’t cooked in like three months. Uh oh, becoming too dependent. Time to break out the Rachel Ray and Cooking Light. Can’t get too soft you know.