Lessons Learned

I sort of felt like I was back in school today -- or back on my old newspaper beat -- when I got to sit back and actually listen and learn something.

This morning I attended a conference for work that happened to be held in Wisconsin Rapids so I got to sleep in and drive 15 minutes to work instead of 50. Nice.

You know what else was nice? Getting out of the office and interacting with people. I miss that about my current "office job." Not that I would go back to the daily grind of newspapers, but it was refreshing to sit, take notes, ask questions and just talk to other humans who don't share your coffee pot or yell over the cubicle walls at you. (No offense to my co-workers.)

By sheer coincidence, the woman sitting next to me was from a "little town up north I'm sure you've never heard of." She was referring to Amery, which is just down the road from Luck. Small world. We couldn't get over that!

The workshop ended close to noon. I was supposed to drop the car off at the garage for an oil change around noon. So I raced home, changed into running gear and went to drop the car off. This is that garage I used to think was 3 miles away but it's over 4. By necessity, I had to hoof it home.

I decided to ease back into running and, well, moving my legs, period. So I put my music on and walked for a song, then ran for 3 songs and repeated. That seemed to work. My legs didn't protest too much and I got home in time to get a whole lotta work done for the afternoon. Lesson learned: I could survive a half-marathon and not be forced into running retirement. (Darn.)

After work, Jim graciously gave me a ride to get the car (I'm not quite ready to do 8 miles in one day) and I went to pick Carter up from football practice. He's all excited because he has no homework and he doesn't have school tomorrow.

I have the day off, too, so the lesson he'll learn is: When Mom has off and I have nothing to do, she'll find something.